now, for the second act
by WDW
Summary: After his death at Pein's hands, Kakashi finally makes his peace with his father. But when he opens his eyes, he's thirteen again, armed with all the knowledge he has of the future and the skill set of a thirty year old ex-ANBU Commander. He's ready to save his precious people. Except, he's not the only one to make it back. [Team Minato time travel]
1. Chapter 1

[A/N: Crossposted from AO3, because the lack of activity in certain character sections made me sad. Title from _Weekend_ , by Priory]

Kakashi expects pain, as he gulps in a breath and feeling returns to his arms and legs, slowly but surely.

Certainly, he had no dearth of cracked ribs and livid bruises when he had died. Pein had been a monstrous opponent. Not an enemy Kakashi particularly wanted to fight, but he was shinobi – he didn't have the luxury to choose. Not that he would have ever took the easy way out, not when the man destroyed _his_ village, when he knew Sakura would be next, when Pein's victory meant Naruto's death. Saving Chouza's boy… well, it wasn't a bad way to go. He held no illusions that a single life saved would in any way counter those he ended

( _those he failed_ )

but he had always hoped to die saving another - _like Rin, like Minato-sensei and Kushina, like_ Obito.

And then, he had opened his eyes to the visage of a man long dead, who had been a constant presence through more than two decades' worth of nightmares. Hatake Sakumo had smiled at him, and beckoned him to take a seat. There, in front of the flickering campfire, Kakashi had made his peace with the man who had shaped so much of his life, his _father._

 _It's not over for you yet, Kakashi-kun_ , Sakumo had said, as a farewell. And then his father was gone, the campfire was gone, _he_ was gone –

\- and he's alive again, and nothing _hurts_. Well. _That_ was certainly a change.

It takes him a minute more to realize that, wherever he is now, it was not the ruins of Konoha in which he died. He's in a bed, in an apartment he vaguely remembers as his own (it's not as if he spent much time in it, anyways) and he's seeing the world with two eyes, neither of them the Sharingan.

He's in a child's body. His _own_ child's body, in fact, and really, if he had always been _that_ short, he understood all the coddling he got from Minato-sensei as a kid. It's a shock, a buzz under his skin as he realizes the ramifications of this – if he was really a kid, if he really was in the past –

Kakashi blinks, and the electric feeling disappears. No, this wasn't the time to get overly excited. He gets out of bed in a smooth motion, shrugs on his gear mechanically, and raises an eyebrow at the silver-haired brat who meets his gaze in the mirror. Ten? No, he had been small for his age, he knew. Twelve then, maybe thirteen. Definitely not after, because there was no dead boy's Sharingan whirling in his socket, because Obito was _alive_.

Which meant – _Rin was alive Minato-sensei was alive Kushina was alive_ no stop – he was about to be late for training. He had ten minutes to get down to the training ground if he didn't want Obito to spend half of the day crowing triumphantly that perfect Kakashi really _wasn't_ as perfect as everyone thought he was. He had ten minutes to get down to the training ground to see his team, his _dead_ team, ghosts of the past who he hadn't seen for more than a decade.

Except, they weren't ghosts anymore. They were alive, and they were going to stay that way, even if Kakashi had to throw himself under that boulder.

* * *

The calendar brings dire news. The mission to Kannabi Bridge, if his memory holds true (and it should, because he had spent decades replaying that particular day of his life, wondering what he could have done, what _if_ ) was in a week. He had a week to figure out a plan to save Uchiha Obito - which really wasn't too difficult a task considered alone, because he wasn't an arrogant thirteen year old jonin anymore - and make sure the rest of his team stays alive. He would have to keep a close eye on Rin, make sure she never got sent on the mission on which she was taken. He would have to drop hints about the Kyuubi months, maybe years before the fact. Kakashi had always had a personal theory that someone had interfered during Naruto's birth, during the short period of time during which Kushina's seal was the weakest - but he had no evidence to corroborate the guess.

Without Obito's Sharingan, he would be without access to a large portion of the arsenal of techniques he had accumulated over the years. But really, he would be a poor shinobi if all of his abilities hinged upon a single eye. He had no desire to have another dead eye in his skull, even if it meant he would have to be creative with his actions. But, there was one thing he was sure about. They couldn't know. It was a selfish decision, because he never wanted those he loved to have that grave knowledge that they could die, they _were_ going to die.

With this in mind, Kakashi makes his way to the training grounds. With luck, Obito wouldn't be there yet, because he really didn't know if he could hold it together, seeing all of Team Minato back together again.

Rin's already there, by the time Kakashi jumps down from the trees. She stares at him with a kind of disbelief, and that's when Kakashi realizes that something was wrong.

She looks horrible. Her face is deathly pale, with a slightly green tinge. Her eyes look sunken in, but what's in them - it's hope and fear at the same time, such an unlikely combination that Kakashi isn't sure what to do when Rin _flings_ herself at him.

"Rin -" He says, chokes out, really, because this _hadn't_ happened. Kakashi would have remembered this.

"Kakashi, I'm so sorry," she whispers, her voice barely a rasp. "I - I'm _so sorry_. I made you -" Her voice cracks, and Kakashi's heart turns to ice. She can't be referring to what he thinks she is, because she _couldn't remember_.

"Rin," he says again, and ignores the wetness on his shoulder even though he knows his thirteen year old self would have freaked out by now, startled by the sudden physical contact and - sheer emotion of the moment, perhaps. But he isn't thirteen years old, and maybe, Rin isn't either.

Rin seems to realize what she's doing, because she lets out a small hysterical giggle. "Ah - Kakashi-kun, I - That was nothing, please forget about it -"

"Don't be sorry," he says. "The Sanbi wasn't your fault."

And then, everything just - stops. Even the birds seem to halt in their songs in that moment, as Rin's eyes widen in horror and she stammers, "K-Kakashi, you _remember_ -"

Kakashi swallows. Tries to look away, because he can't meet her eyes. "...I remember," he says. "You - You had the Sanbi sealed in you, and you -"

"I leaped onto your Chidori," Rin says, her voice small. And then repeats, steel-like, " _I_ leaped onto your Chidori. Kakashi, it wasn't your fault, if I hadn't had the seal on me, I would have done it myself, but it wouldn't _let_ me -"

"I know, Rin," he says, mouth dry. "I _know_. But Rin... how are you _here_?"

"I don't know," she says. "I... died. That's the last thing I remember. But... Kakashi, how -"

"I died too." For an instant, he wants to laugh. This was ridiculous, this was _hilarious_ , really. Because he had wished so hard to protect his precious people from the knowledge of the future, and it was just his luck, huh? There would be no halcyon days for Hatake Kakashi.

" _You_ died?" Rin repeats. "A-Ah, I mean, I know that everyone dies, but... Kakashi, you -"

"It was against a man named Pein," Kakashi says. "He had multiple bodies, which he controlled at the same time. The village was destroyed, and he was coming after my student - Minato-sensei's son. I fought him, but it wasn't enough."

"Sensei's son?" Rin exclaims. "With Kushina?"

"Yeah. His name is Naruto... Exactly the kind of name you would expect from Kushina's kid, huh?" He grins weakly behind his mask. "...It was chakra exhaustion in the end. I guess I should have listened to you more, huh?"

Rin blinks, and then her mouth drops open. "Kakashi, you idiot!" She shouts, and it's as if nothing had changed. "I _told_ you to stop using your flashy techniques and to cover up your eye when you didn't need to use it! That's not what Obito meant when he said he wanted to see the future with you and -"

She stops, and her hand drops to her side from where she had been planning to smack him. "Obito," she says again. "Do you think he -"

Kakashi blinks. "I - I don't know. It would make sense, if _we're_ here, then..." Hope feels light in his chest. If Obito came back in time as well, then he would be the boy that Kakashi remembered - the one who saw Kakashi as a friend, not an enemy, who remembered the White Fang.

Her expression turns fierce. "It's been too long since I've seen my best friend, Kakashi ! What are we waiting for?" Rin grabs his hand, and _pulls_. "We're going to his apartment - maybe he's still asleep." _Or, he already woke up, and is freaking out because the last thing he remembers is a violent death_ , she doesn't say, but Kakashi hears it anyways.

* * *

Obito's apartment is located in the outskirts of the Uchiha Compound. He had been enough of a black sheep that the majority of the Uchiha didn't want him in close proximity with the other Uchiha children, who were easily influenced by his deviant ways. They had blamed his differences on his mother's status as an outsider and his father's reputation for being _different_ , for why else would he choose to marry someone outside of the clan? The only Uchiha that Obito had any extensive contact with was his cousin Uchiha Mikoto, who had always had a soft spot for him and frequently asked him to babysit for her.

All this, Kakashi would find out after Obito's death. Uchiha Mikoto had spoken to him at Obito's funeral, with a kindness and understanding that he did not expect from one of Obito's kinsmen. What other scraps of knowledge had been gained from years in ANBU on the same team as one ANBU Weasel, also known as Uchiha Itachi. The boy had fond memories of his distant cousin, and sometimes (under the influence of too much morphine, perhaps) had shared some of them.

It hit Kakashi back then how much of Obito he hadn't known. All he had ever seen was the hyperactive, perpetually late idiot who had always been a step or two behind everyone else. Not a boy whose only friends were Rin and the four year old Itachi, who would spend hours training with out-of-date manuals begged off of a sympathetic neighbor. Not the young man who had probably helped every old person in the village at some point or another, whether it was hefting groceries or leading a half-blind old granny across the street. That, Kakashi had only found out after dozens of elders, civilian and retired shinobi alike, showed up stone faced and stiff-lipped to Obito 's funeral.

This was the Obito who had died for him, for Hatake Kakashi who had never accomplished anything more in his life than be a weapon. Was it any wonder that Kakashi had a complex?

"I think he's inside," Rin says, peering through a small gap in the curtains that obscured much of Obito's sole window. "I don't see him though. Do you think he's alright?"

"He's Obito," Kakashi says. He hopes that's enough.

She knocks on the door once, twice, three times. There's no answer. "Try again?" Kakashi asks.

Still nothing. "Maybe he's coming to the door," Rin says weakly. "...Kakashi, what are we going to say?"

"What do you mean?"

"Obito died... and now he's alive again. I think. We're _all_ alive again, and I - I just got used to the fact that he was really gone. Do you think he remembers... what it's like? To be dead, I mean." Rin's rambling, but it's understandable. She's young, maybe half of Kakashi's real age, and even he is about three minutes away from having a mental fit.

"Probably not," he says. "I mean, you don't - and what I remember... probably isn't normal." Kakashi feels Rin's questioning gaze on his back, and sighs. "It was my father."

"Oh," she says weakly. "Did you see - us?"

Kakashi doesn't answer, and maybe that was answer enough for Rin, because she doesn't probe anymore. "I can't believe it," Rin says suddenly. "All of this - it feels so crazy. Do you think anyone else went back to the past after they died? I mean, they probably wouldn't tell anyone if they did. But - I mean - why _us_? We're not... the legendary Sannin, or anything like that. Obito died when he was _thirteen_. The only thing special about me is that I was a jinchuruki before I died. Why -"

The door opens, and for an instant, Kakashi cannot comprehend what's standing in the doorway. It was Obito and it wasn't, a _man/beast/abomination_ in a child's body, eyes dark with a knowledge that no person could possess. The chakra signature itself was _massive_ , possibly even bijuu level, and that wasn't possible, because -

Kakashi blinks, and it's Obito standing in the doorway, eyes wide behind orange goggles. There's something odd about him, a kind of hunger in his body language as he looks upon them. "...Rin? Kakashi? What are you two doing here?" He says, and again, there's something _off_. Kakashi can't put a finger on it, but it seems obvious to him that Obito is hiding something big. But they all were, weren't they?

"Obito," Kakashi says with a sigh, "it's okay. We remember too." Rin nods tearfully next to him.

Obito's expression turns blank. He says nothing for a long while, and then - "Come in," he says brusquely, a strange tone in his voice.

His apartment is darkened and cramped, which is understandable. Obito closes the door behind them with a click. Kakashi says nothing, because for all his flippancy earlier, he doesn't know what to say to Obito, not really. Finally, he starts. "I know you remember dying, Obito. Rin and I - we both died too. And then we woke up here."

He doesn't know what he expects Obito to do. Scream in anger, perhaps? Demand explanations? Curse him, for not protecting Rin? But the Uchiha's eyes darken with a hatred that Kakashi never knew he possessed. "You died too then, Kakashi?" He asks, deceptively calm.

At Kakashi's nod, Obito scowls. "...Then even my sacrifice wasn't enough, then." And then, before Kakashi could reassure him that no, he had made it out of the cave with Rin, it was much _later_ \- the Uchiha asks, "Was Kaguya defeated?"

"...Kaguya?" Rin asks, confusion obvious in her voice. "Obito, what are you talking about?"

"Rin," Obito says blankly, as if really seeing her for the first time. "Rin. I - I'll explain everything. But..." His voice cracks a little. "Later. Please."

Without waiting for a reply - though the look on Obito's face suggested that he wouldn't know how to deal with it, even if he got one - the boy turns toward Kakashi, his eyes intense in a way that Kakashi had only seen in the caves near Kannabi Bridge. "Did Naruto manage to take her down? I assume for our sakes that this isn't part of Kaguya's Infinite Tsukuyomi," he says dryly, but Kakashi -

Kakashi just doesn't _understand_.

"Obito, you - you know about Naruto?" He stammers, which is the only thing he manages to take in. Kakashi ignores the dozens of other questions that bounce in his head - Who is Kaguya? Infinite Tsukuyomi? How did Obito - and thinks, _Then, Obito's eye... He really did see everything._

The thought makes his mouth dry. He doesn't know what to do with the revelation, because that would mean -

"Kakashi?" Obito eyes him oddly. "Of course I know about Naruto. How could I possibly forget about the brat and his _ridiculous_ talks?"

None of that made sense to Kakashi, in any way. "His... talks?" He repeats. "Obito, I don't -"

That's when Rin slams her hands on both of their mouths. "It seems clear to me," she says, deceptively sweetly, "that there are some _misunderstandings_ going on here. If there's one thing I know, it's that lack of proper communication kills. If people just said what they mean, things would be a lot easier, right? _Obito_." Rin had not taken Kakashi's revelation of Obito's true feelings for her well. Obito flushes a faint red.

"Obito, what's the last thing you remember?" Kakashi asks.

The Uchiha looks reluctant to speak. Haltingly, he says, "We were in Kaguya's pocket dimension - you, me, and that team of yours. Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. I... took a hit for you." His lips twist in a sardonic grin. " _Again_. The last thing I remember is... seeing you, Rin, and giving Kakashi my Sharingan." He squints at Kakashi. "...You did get those, right?"

Kakashi blinks, unsure of what to say. "...I did get your Sharingan. Your _single_ Sharingan, after you were crushed by a _boulder."_

"That... was when we were _thirteen_ , Kakashi," Obito says slowly, black eyes roving over Kakashi as if looking for signs of severe brain damage - which, if Kakashi had to say, was far more likely to be evident on Obito than him. "...It's been almost two decades."

"But - _Obito_ \- " Rin manages, with some difficulty. "You _died_ when we were thirteen."

"No, Rin," Obito says, tilting his head so his eyes lie in shadow. "...No, I didn't."

He doesn't know what to do with the revelation. Kakashi had walked into Obito's apartment, expecting a tearful reunion with the boy who had sacrificed everything for him - the boy who he had failed, at every turn. "Obito, you survived?" He asks weakly, trying to understand.

The Uchiha frowns deeply. "We've... went through this, remember?" If the circumstances were any less dire, Kakashi would laugh at the blank tone in Obito's voice. "What the hell, Kakashi? You said the last thing you remember was dying. How do you not remember anything about Kaguya?"

"I died when the leader of the Akatsuki destroyed the village," he reveals, even though he doubts that it would make any more sense to Obito. "...Who _is_ Kaguya?"

"... The leader of the Akatsuki?" Obito repeats, his eyes narrowed. "But I didn't - "

He pauses. "Ah, I understand. It was Nagato, wasn't it?"

"Who?"

"Nagato. _Pein_. He killed you."

"Pein," Kakashi growls. "...Yes, it was Pein. But Obito," he asks, trying not to wonder just how exactly Obito knew so much about a future he had never lived to see (or did he?) "You didn't answer my question. Who's Kaguya? And... Obito, if you survived, then -"

Obito shakes his head. "...Kaguya... she's not that important right now," he says curtly. "But the short of it is, I survived Kannabi Bridge. I... know Rin died. I never came back to the village, and spent the last two decades of my life... well, I would say 'different.' Other people would say 'insane'" He grins at that, a tad weakly. "I'm a lot better now."

Kakashi stares for a full minute before he puts a hand to the bridge of his nose, and sighs. "Obito, you're serious?"

The Uchiha nods, and. Actually, he really shouldn't be surprised anymore, should he.

"Obito, but half of your body had been _crushed_. Even if Tsunade-sama had been on hand to treat you..." Rin says slowly, always the logical one.

"No, it wasn't Tsunade," the Uchiha mutters, expression dark. "It was someone a lot worse."

Someone knocks on the door, the sharp taps jolting all three members of the team out of a spell. The three of them swing to stare at the small gap of the window - and the slight bit of spiky blonde hair that is visible through it.

"Sensei," Obito says, eyes wide.

* * *

[A/N: Revised the end on 6-15-15]


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that Minato notices is the silence.

For too long, his life had been a whirlwind of color and sound. He had gone from war hero to Hokage in an instant, a boyfriend to a husband to a _father_ in what felt like even less. There was always the deafening roar of war - crumbling rock and buzzing electricity and _Sensei, Obito's gone_ \- and after that, always a clan head who felt slighted by a new village policy, or an elder enraged by his refusal to abide by their every whim. And, in the end, there had been the screams and the snarl of the Kyuubi, the menacing tones of the masked man and Naruto's panicked cries, and by the time he had activated the seal, he had almost been _relieved_ -

Except, this was not the stomach of the Shinigami. Not if the stomach of the Shinigami looked like his bachelor's apartment, from which he had moved out several years ago, a year before getting the position of Hokage.

He blinks, slow and deliberate, and forms a seal. " _Kai_ ," Minato says.

Nothing. Still, he could not let down his guard, not when the masked man had been a Uchiha - _and who could he have been?_ \- and could have layered illusion upon illusion on him.

Minato bites his thumb open, almost absentmindedly registering the sharp pain as he makes the seals. A medium-sized toad puffs into being in front of him, and meets his stare with a quizzical look. "Yo?" It greets, single webbed appendage raised.

The summons had worked. It shouldn't have, not if this was any genjutsu he had heard of. "Ah," he says. "...Sorry. My mistake." The toad looks at him balefully for a moment, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

That left him two options. Either he was in an illusion deeper than any that he knew - and he was perfectly aware of how much he _didn't,_ Hokage or not - or the ridiculously tiny chance that - this was real, and he was in an apartment that should no longer belong to him. Should no longer _exist_ , because this had been one of the first targets of the Kyuubi's destruction.

How much of what he had experienced was real? The last thing he had remembered had been standing against all of the Kyuubi's might, Kushina by his side -

Kushina. _Kushina_. How could he have forgotten about his wife, his best friend, the mother of his child? Could she be in the same situation he was, waking up years in the past when she _knew_ she should be dead?

Minato moves quickly through the village, even by Yellow Flash standards. Somehow, he didn't think Kushina would take too kindly to his Hiraishin-ing straight to her apartment door, especially since she had told him not to hide any of his 'funky kunai' around her place. _I'm not some damsel in distress, dattebane! I can take care of myself_ , she had said. But he had worried, and well, she hadn't found out then, and (hopefully) she wouldn't find out now.

His hands are sweating as he knocks on her door. Once, twice, and then the door slams open as Kushina - hair shocking red, expression twisted in indignant anger, a single finger pointed up to his face - demands loudly, "Hey, maybe you dipshits could actually _sell_ whatever you're hawking if you came some time a _sane_ person would be awa -"

Minato blinks. Kushina stops, mouth open. "...Minato? Hey, what are _you_ doing here?" She asks, drawing back. "...Eheh... sorry about that, I've been having some trouble with, uh, vacuum sellers recently."

"Vacuum sellers?" He repeats slowly, his eyes fixed upon her face. He had thought that it would be the last time he would ever see her again, as they stood against the might of the rampaging Kyuubi together and bid goodbye to their beloved son. But she was here now, wonderfully alive, and -

"Yeah, vacuum sellers. It's crazy. _They're_ crazy. Why do I need a vacuum?" She rambles on, rolling her eyes. "Do I _look_ like my apartment needs a vacuum? Actually, no, don't answer that, I know my place is a mess. But -"

"Kushina," he says, almost desperately. "Do you remember? About Naruto."

"...Remember what?" She squints at him. "...If this is about the ramen last night, I _know,_ but Ichiraku's was closed and ugh -"

It feels like the ground is being pulled out from under him. "It's nothing," he says thickly, unconsciously taking a step back from the woman he loved. "I mean - yes. The ramen was... not well made."

"...Uh, yeah," Kushina says, equally awkwardly. "Uh, is that why you came? I mean, ramen's pretty damn important, but isn't your team waiting for you? I bet even Obito-kun's made it by now, dattebane - it's ten minutes past six."

His team. Minato jolts back, eyes widened in sudden realization.

 _His team_ , the one that really didn't exist anymore, even in paperwork, because there was only one other member who was alive - and Kakashi had been months into ANBU, so submerged in that to the point to which Minato would have forced him out if he didn't know Kakashi would resort to more desperate measures to drown his memories. His team, who he had failed, in one way or another. The three _children_ who he had gotten horribly killed (or close to it) because he just hadn't been there, not when the rocks came down on poor, cheerful Obito, not when Kiri strapped the Sanbi to Rin and forced her to make the only decision she thought open to her _because a trained seal user had not been there_ , not when Kakashi, who had lost everything already, decided to lose himself as well.

They were alive. Most likely, Obito and Kakashi had already started brawling, with Rin trying to play the mediator. "I- I forgot," he says, a tad sheepishly. "Kushina, I need to go."

"Yeah, alright. Tell those crazy kids of yours I said hi, alright? Maybe I'll drop by sometime." She grins, pecks him on the cheek, and then shuts the door. Seconds later, Minato is off and running, bounding from roof to roof and finally landing to -

\- to see an empty training ground. No Kakashi, no Obito, no Rin. There's a moment of illogical panic for him when he thinks, _had he failed them already? Even before he had a chance to do better_ \- before he realizes that there's a note in the grass, written in Rin's neat penmanship.

 _Sensei_ , it reads (it had been months since he had seen Rin's neat, always precise mission reports, and for some reason, it is that thought that burns in his chest as he reads) _Obito was late. Kakashi and I are going to his apartment._ Relief blossoms within him as he uses Hiraishin - he has special kunai placed near every one of his student's homes - and appears in his trademark yellow flash just a few minutes away from Obito's shabby apartment, on the outskirts of the Clan Compound. Anywhere else, and the Uchiha would not have been happy with Minato's placing of his kunai on clan grounds.

He senses the chakra signatures of his three students nearby, and - they're not what he remembered them to be like, but... it had been years. Most likely, he had remembered incorrectly. Still, they were flickering, as if the three were getting increasingly agitated. Understandable - Kakashi and Obito used to act - _do act_ like cats and dogs on a good day, and being stuck in Obito's tiny apartment probably wasn't doing them any good.

Minato makes his way up the creaking stairs, and knocks on Obito's door. The chakra signatures inside - jolt, for lack of a better word. His team was... surprised? They weren't expecting him to be here, which didn't make sense, because Rin had left a note, didn't she?

Moments later, the door clicked open to reveal an ill-looking Nohara Rin. Still significantly better than she looked the last time he had seen her - or rather her body, but _don't think about that_ \- and behind her were -

"Kakashi, Obito, Rin," Minato says, chokes out, really, because they were just like how he had remembered them, young and _alive_ , in every sense of the word. Kakashi's two eyes stare back at him, and yes, he remembered now - the boy had been disagreeable and cranky at times, but he hadn't had the dead eyes possessed by the Kakashi he had last seen. Obito and Rin were - they were back, and for the first time in a very long time, Namikaze Minato feels that his family is together again.

"We're sorry for leaving, Minato-sensei," Rin says. "It's just, Kakashi and I talked with Obito a little and we lost track of time."

"It's fine," he replies absentmindedly. "It's good, I - It's alright." Yes, it would be alright now. With what Minato knew about the future, there was no reason that any member of his team would meet the fates they met in his time. Really, all it took to save his students were split second decisions - if only he had sent a clone along with his team, if only he had assigned the mission to someone else, if only -

But because no one has ever accused Minato of being an idiot (other than Kushina, of course), he notices that... there was something wrong. Obito, for some reason, is steadfastly avoiding his eyes, his face expressionless and turned away. Kakashi, on the other hand, cannot seem to stop staring at him, both eyes wide with some kind of - disbelief? Joy? It is difficult to tell.

...It had been years since he had seen his team like this. More likely than not, his memory was playing tricks on him.

"Team," he begins, and it had really been too long. "Kakashi, Rin, Obito," Minato says again, because it feels like just saying their names make them just a bit more _real_ , not illusions constructed haphazardly out of guilt and if-only's. "I have some news for you three. You all remember the mission that we've been given for next week, correct?"

All three students of his nod, oddly tense. Minato pauses for a moment, and makes a decision. "...I decided that we're not ready," he says, even though he knows that the village is running short on teams, even though he knows that, on paper, his team - one newly promoted jounin and two chuunin - should be skilled enough to complete the mission with no casualties. True, he is - _was?_ \- Hokage, and he should be making the decisions for the good of the village -

But he had already made a lifetime's worth of those decisions. This time, he was going to protect those people close to his heart.

Rin is the first to react. "Then," she says slowly, "w-we're _not_ going to... Kannabi Bridge?" Her eyes are wide as she glances over at Obito, expression unreadable.

"...That's correct," Minato says. The Hokage would not be happy. He would demand an explanation, a genuine reason, but he would think of one later that didn't include, "the heart of my team will die on this mission, and the rest of them won't survive the war."

He expects Kakashi to protest, first of all. It fits with what he remembers of the proud shinobi that Kakashi had been, so eager to prove himself to not be like his father that he would do anything to fulfill his duties. This was to be his first mission as a jounin, after all, and he must have been so excited -

But Kakashi stays quiet, seemingly just as poleaxed as Rin seems. For some reason, he seems _glad_. No, instead, it is Obito who slams a hand down and says, "No. We have to go on that mission."

" _Obito,_ " Rin hisses. "

"Minato-sensei," the Uchiha says, ignoring Rin's outburst. He meets his gaze for the first time since Minato had entered the room. "We need to take that mission."

Minato blinks, somewhat confused. "Why?" He asks. Obito had no reason to want to go on that mission, not like Kakashi did. In fact, if he remembered correctly, Obito had been dreading leaving for Iwa for another few weeks when he had only had a week or so's worth of time back in the village.

"There's something I need to do," the boy says, and it sounds like a promise. There is an unfamiliar tone in his voice. If it hadn't been Obito, of all people, Minato would have thought it was hatred, pure and concentrated.

"...Surely, there are other opportunities to do what you need to do," he replies, an edge in his voice. Minato had not expected the biggest barrier to saving Obito's life to be Obito himself, not when his student had always been obedient to every order other than, 'Don't get in a fight with Kakashi again.' "Obito, respect my authority as team commander -"

"Sensei -" The Uchiha tries again, and it reminds him so much of Kakashi begging him to sign off another S-rank mission with an eighty percent mortality rate that Minato can't help but -

"Obito, this mission is going to kill you!" He snaps, and immediately wishes he didn't. Maybe it had been the stress of the past twenty four hours getting to him, or the hope of a second chance knocking him off his feet. Minato tries to backtrack. Perhaps he could write it off as an exaggeration? "Obito, what I mean is -"

His team had gone quiet, faces oddly pale as they stare at him with wide eyes.

Then, Kakashi sighs once, and asks, "Then... Minato-sensei, do you remember?"

"...I'm not sure what you mean, Kakashi," Minato replies slowly, tense.

"What I mean is... do you remember Obito dying, and giving me his Sharingan? Rin, and the Sanbi?" Kakashi narrows his eyes. "Minato-sensei, do you remember Naruto?"

Minato fixates on the impossible name, first of all. How could Kakashi know this? Not even the Kakashi of his time had known, because it had been a secret between only himself and Kushina. The only other person who could have possibly have an _inkling_ would have been Jiraiya, as it had been his book that Minato had gotten the name from... but Kakashi?

Something must have appeared on his face, because Kakashi's eyes shine with grim realization. "Rin, Obito, and I... Minato-sensei, we all remember up to our deaths. I'm assuming it's the same for you, too? ...The Kyuubi."

He takes in the information... the best he could. "Kakashi," he says sharply, "you didn't die during the - ?" Minato can't bring himself to finish the sentence, because it would mean that he had failed again to protect his students.

But the boy shakes his head. "I died a long time after that, Minato-sensei. I was thirty."

Minato's jaw drops, even as Rin spins toward Kakashi with wide eyes. In fact, the only person who didn't seem surprised was the still uncomfortable looking Obito. "T-Thirty?" He manages, though a tad weakly. That... Then Kakashi was older than _he_ was!

Kakashi grins under his mask, an action Minato can only decipher after years of being his sensei. "Hatake Kakashi, jounin sensei," he says - _chirps_ , almost, and what had _happened_ to Kakashi over the decade and a half?

" _Jounin sensei?_ " Rin squeaks. "Kakashi, _you_ became a jounin sensei?" It was surprising to Minato as well, doubly so because the last time he had seen Hatake Kakashi, he had been sent on another S-rank mission with a particularly suicidal gleam in his eye. He had truly seemed more dead than alive, unwilling to be drawn back by either Kushina's invitations for dinners or Minato's suggestions to leave ANBU. The specters of Rin and Obito had been too strong, then, and it seemed that Kakashi had no way to go but down.

But... a jounin sensei? Minato fought the urge to boggle at the knowledge. Kakashi wasn't exactly patient, understanding, or easy to get along with - he had none of the traits he normally ascribed to teachers.

...He suddenly felt very bad for Kakashi's future? past? students.

"Yup! Those three adorable students of mine -" Rin twitches as Kakashi sighs, a tad over dramatically. "It must have been karma, because they acted almost _exactly_ like us. Minato-sensei, I applaud you on never dangling Obito and I from the tallest tree in the Forbidden Forest, because Naruto and Sasuke..."

"Sasuke? _Naruto?_ " Minato repeats, blankly. "Kakashi, you were my son's jounin sensei?" And then, before Kakashi could make a reply, he shakes his head. "...Don't answer that right now. Team, we need to get everyone on the same page here. We... all died at different times, so there are things that only some of us know." It was all he could take to force himself not to ask Kakashi about the masked man who Minato had faced off of that night. Surely, after almost two decades, that monster would have made an appearance?

Before he could voice that question, another one pops into his head. "Obito," he says slowly, "if you _remember_ what happened at Kannabi Bridge... then you understand why we can't go on that mission. Why are you so eager to go?"

Obito looks up at him, and for an instant, Minato finds him utterly unfamiliar. What had happened to the cheerful boy he remembered, who always had a few minutes to spare for anyone down on their luck or worn down by the grains of time? "Minato-sensei," Obito says. "There are more factors at work here than you know. I didn't die at Kannabi Bridge."

He must have told Kakashi and Rin this before Minato had came in, because neither of the two show surprise - only a slight tensing of expression. But Minato... Minato is poleaxed. "Obito, what do you mean you didn't die? You gave your eye to Kakashi, you were crushed under the rocks -"

"It should have killed me," the boy - man? - agrees. "But I was... _saved_ ," and his derisive tone shows exactly how he felt about that, "by an old man living underground. He was called Uchiha Madara."

Rin whirls around. "But Obito, Uchiha Madara - he died decades ago! The village's founding!" She exclaims, even as Obito shakes his head. "He found a way to survive," he mutters.

Minato dimly hears Kakashi's reaction of disbelief, because now he remembers - the masked man, who had claimed to be -

 _Uchiha Madara_. That had been the man who had pulled the Kyuubi out of the weakened Kushina, had threatened the life of his _son_ , had destroyed the village. Yes, it made sense - that incredible strength, that strange technique that could only have been a space-time technique developed over almost a century of life.

"Obito, what were you thinking?" He asks. "Uchiha Madara... I fought that man before, the night I died." Kakashi makes a choking noise. "He's strong, monstrously so. I don't know what he did to you, but -" And that had been another failure, because he had _left_ Obito in the grasp of that man, a being who had been as close to pure evil as any living person could. That certainly explained the massive changes to Obito's personality, because Madara would certainly have had no mercy for the kind of person Obito was as a child.

"You're not strong enough, Obito. Even I could not defeat him, I could only chase him away momentarily," Minato says grimly. "If we want to take Madara down... we need to inform the Hokage of the danger, mobilize a shinobi force -"

Obito shakes his head slowly. "...No, Sensei, you don't _know -_ " and his voice cracks. _He's tearing up_ , Minato realizes. But _why_ -

The boy's black eyes swirl into a pair of Sharingan - three tomoes, _fully mastered,_ when had Obito - ? - and the world _shifts_ around him -

* * *

Minato stands in the ruins of Konoha. The Kyuubi roars in the distance, but in this instance, he pays it no mind. Instead, the entirety of his attention is focused on the figure in front of him.

"I tell you this not because I want your forgiveness," Obito says, eyes too serious for his diminutive frame. "...I know I have no hope of receiving it. But... You deserve to know."

Before Minato can reply, can ask for an explanation - the Uchiha takes a step forward, and _shifts_. It feels natural, nothing like a Henge - the new figure that stands in front of him seems a natural progression of the last, even though that _can't_ be _Obito_ -

Uchiha Madara stands in front of him, mask tilted toward his direction. His presence is oppressive, and he _knows_ somehow that the chakra surrounding him is _evil_ in a way that he had only felt from bijuu. He felt like darkness embodied. The chains are around his arms, and if Minato looks closely, he can see the shine of scarlet behind his sole eye hole.

Sole eye hole? But it couldn't be -

"Obito," he breathes. " _Obito."_


	3. Chapter 3

Uchiha Obito dies with a smile on his face, satisfied with the knowledge that he had died as Obito, not as Tobi, not as Madara, not as _nobody_. He dies sacrificing himself for Kakashi ( _again_ , and no, he does not plan to repeat that) and the last thing he sees is his old teammate's wide eyes as Obito crumbles to dust in front of him.

He finally sees Rin, realizes the true ridiculousness of his Sharingan abilities, and takes a detour from death - because, apparently, he could do that with Kamui.

 _This would have been helpful a decade ago_ , he thinks. Still, Kakashi _needs_ him - or, at least, his eyes - if he and his team are to survive Kaguya and save the world, so Obito gives him his Sharingan ( _again_ , and honestly, it's getting a bit ridiculous.)

He returns to the afterlife, sees Rin again, weeps a few tears, and - Rin grins deviously. "What?" Obito asks with trepidation. He knows that smile because he had seen it for most of his childhood, as a warning to duck and cover. Who knew aspiring medic nins could inadvertently (though he does have his suspicions on that) set off so many explosions?

"You're not done yet, Obito," Rin says to him. _You're screwed_ , says the quirk of her lips.

"I - what?" He says blankly. "...My body is literally dust, Rin. What am I supposed to do, swirl around and make people sneeze? I should have probably died five times over by now. Just - _again_?"

(Obito was getting a bit sick of the repetition in his life.)

"Not now, obviously," she replies with a roll of her eyes. "Besides, it's not like you'll be alone. I'll come along!"

"What -"

Rin's eyes turn soft. "...It's not a punishment, Obito. Think of it as the second act, like in those terrible romance plays Minato-sensei dragged us to all the time. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," she adds. "You cried at those even more than _Sensei_ did."

Obito flushes red. "...You're talking about a second chance, then," he says, ignoring all that about plays because hiding under the seats (Namikaze Minato seemed to have no concept of age requirement rules) did _nothing_ to help with his dust problem, and he would stick with that until the day he died (wait...)

"Depends on how you use it," she points out. "It's still a continuation from the first - nothing's erased, nothing's forgotten." Obito grimaces involuntarily, because as much as he didn't _deserve_ it... he had hoped - "Still," Rin continues hurriedly, having evidently seen the expression on his face, "it means you will have the opportunity to change things. _We'll_ have the opportunity to change things."

A jolt of hope in his heart. "When you say you're coming along..."

It had been too long since he had seen Rin, so many terrible years without the sunshine radiance of her smile, the simple understanding of him that no one else have ever had, the sudden realization that he had fucked up completely whenever she shouted, _Obito, what the hell were you_ thinking -

...Yeah, the latter would have been incredibly useful in the past two decades or so of decisions that more-or-less ranged from bad, worse, to worst.

"It means I'll be there with you, Obito. But," she adds, "the last thing I will remember will be dying."

"So you won't remember this conversation with me," Obito realizes. "...You won't know what I've _done_." And as relieving as it was, that Rin wouldn't know about his countless sins (and would not spend a day or two completely and utterly kicking his ass while shouting obscenities) he knows that they were something that he would not keep from her. As much trouble as it would mean for him... Obito refused to lie to the people he loved, not again.

"To be fair," Rin says, "you won't remember this conversation either. Now, it's going to be a bit weird in your situation - honestly, Obito, even I didn't know your eye could do that - but I think you'll only remember up to giving Kakashi your Sharingan, again."

Obito starts. "Then what's the point of having this conversation?"

"You might not remember this specifically, but it'll probably stay with you subconsciously. I don't know for sure," Rin adds, wrinkling her face. "This is really complicated. But... Honestly, if you woke up in your old place right after dying... you would probably have burned your whole apartment complex down just because you would have thought it was Kaguya again."

"I - Okay, fine, maybe I would." Obito concedes. "...What about Kakashi?" He swallows, thinking of the final quasi-peace he had made with the man, and _knowing_ how much it had affected Kakashi to lose him yet again. And then a horrible thought rises in his mind, of dark nights and burning buildings because - "Sensei," he chokes. "Minato-sensei, will he - ?"

"Our whole team," Rin says. "They'll remember up to their deaths, same as us... though it's a bit weird in Kakashi's case as well. Honestly, boys..." She shakes her head.

He stares at her, with just a little bemusement because... what had happened to Kakashi? But - "...What happens now, Rin?" Obito asks, glancing around at his surroundings.

"Now," Rin says, a grin on her face even as an intense light begins to emanate from every part of their surroundings, obscuring Obito's vision completely, "we _kick Madara's ass._ "

* * *

Obito wakes up in an apartment he hadn't seen in two decades, in a body that was wholly _his_. He blinks with two eyes that _weren't_ constantly draining from his pool of chakra - which, for some reason, didn't feel as large as he remembered.

Minutes later, looking into the mirror, he got his answer - and a vast number of questions. Had Kakashi and his team defeated Kaguya? Had his death been for vain? And... why was he _here_?

...Had the last two decades of utter hell been... a dream? Just a single night fantasy of the weakling of the Uchiha clan? Obito's common sense told him no, it _had_ happened - but he, of all people, knew the power of dreams.

He forces chakra into his eyes, and - no, not a dream, Obito decides, as he feels the tightly coiled power of Kamui in his eyes, stronger than they had ever felt because he had _both_ of his eyes and wasn't suffering from extreme chakra exhaustion. The mirror reflects his blood red pinwheel eyes, merely confirming what he already knew. He tries for Mokuton, even though he knows that he does not have the Senju DNA that would allow him control of that rare ability -

\- _what?_ Obito blinks. He knows that it was physically impossible for him to still have control of the Mokuton. He doesn't have Senju DNA, not anymore. But while he could no longer feel that power thrumming under his skin, as it had for close to two decades, there was - what? Just... something familiar there, where Mokuton usually was.

Impossible, he decides. Just his imagination. He did not have the requisite Senju DNA. Mokuton was lost to him... but what he gained was so much more.

The past, Obito thinks. _The past_. He could end Madara now, he knows, because regardless of how strong the man had been in his prime - he was old now, and Obito was young and _remembered_ all the techniques and skills that had made Uchiha Obito a S-ranked threat in the future. True, his body was in no way prepared, but if only he could get to Madara, he had all the advantage of surprise.

He glances at the clock on his wall and, for the first time in years, realizes that he was... _late_.

Punctuality had not been the chief concern for either Uchiha Madara or Tobi. When one was the leader of a criminal organization, one quickly realizes that the rules of punctuality rarely apply. But here and now, he was Uchiha Obito, who was _late_ to training with his team. No doubt, Kakashi, still the ill-tempered little midget he had been all those years ago, had already began to gripe.

That was when he hears the knock on his door.

Rin and Kakashi are at his doorstep, and it takes Obito so _much_ just to not cry, right there and now. For decades, he had thought that his tears had all been expended in the aftermath of Rin's death. Maybe, they had simply been saved for now.

And then, Kakashi speaks - and Obito's world is turned upside down.

They remember. They _remember_ , and the next few moments pass in a blur. He tells them the truth, tells them that he _survived_ , because he cannot handle the look of guilt and pity they give him every few minutes when they had no idea what he had done. When Minato-sensei enters, and - he remembers as well, and Obito knows - _knows_ \- that he cannot keep this from his team.

The Sharingan swirl into being in his eyes, and even as Rin cries in alarm, he pulls Minato-sensei into a genjutsu.

* * *

Minato-sensei figures it out quickly. Namikaze Minato had never been a stupid man.

Obito doesn't know what to expect. The first time his sensei had learned of his survival, had realized what Obito had _become_ \- well, Obito had been left bleeding out in the middle of the battlefield. Only his activation of the jinchuriki technique had saved him, and even that had been a close thing.

He stands without speaking, waiting for the other man to make the first move. Being a genjutsu, even if Minato injured him, maimed him, _killed_ him here... it wouldn't be permanent. Not that Obito didn't deserve anything his sensei would do to him, but in order to make any kind of amends for his sins, _they_ had to know who and what they were facing. Even if Obito died here, Madara would only find another pawn.

"Obito," his sensei repeats. Obito's Sharingan takes in his every move - the slight twitch of his hand toward his kunai pouch, the gritting of his teeth as he took in the revelation - but the man makes no move to attack. "...It was you, that night?"

"Yes," he says. "It was me."

" _Why?"_

For a moment, Obito is speechless. This... out of all he had imagined, he had not expected Minato - Minato-sensei - to demand an explanation, instead of exacting his revenge. But maybe... he had not been thinking of what Namikaze Minato would have done. Obito had been thinking of what _he_ had done, that day so many years ago, as he sobbed into Rin's broken body -

\- and what was he to say? He swallows. It's not an easy thing, his fall to darkness. Yes, Rin had died. Yes, Kakashi had been the one to put his hand through her heart - the true reason behind the act, Obito had only found out later. But he had not started a war because the girl he loved had died. It had been a combination of factors, of the seals and mental conditioning Madara had forced upon him during his captivity, of the childhood spent in the midst of war and bloodshed, and yes, of that - _that day_.

"Uchiha Madara told me that this world was inherently corrupt," he says finally. "He offered me a chance to transform it into something better. A place where everyone could be happy." He spits out the words, because after Naruto... he could see the falseness behind that idea, the _childishness_ of it all. And, because it had been because of _him_ in the end that Madara had targeted Rin, not because of Minato-sensei, not because of the village - "He arranged Rin's death so I would believe him."

That, at least, elicits a reaction. The other man freezes in his step at the revelation, and when he looks at Obito again, it is with - no, it couldn't be - sympathy in his expression. But just as quickly as it appears, Minato-sensei - no, Minato, because Obito did not deserve to call him by the former, not any more - frowns, his expression shuttering off. "Why Kushina, then?" Minato asks, a hard look in his eye "Why _Naruto_?"

Obito almost winces, because... out of everything he had done in the two decades of his life, his unleashing of the Kyuubi had been the one he had regretted most. In one fell swoop, he had destroyed his village and orphaned the biological child of the only two parental figures he had ever had. After that, there truly was no turning back (or so he had thought, before a certain blonde menace decided otherwise.)

"Madara wanted to reform the Juubi and become its jinchuriki," he explains curtly. "Only with that would he have the power to use the Eternal Tsukuyomi, and place the entirety of the world under his illusion of a better world."

"You didn't get the Kyuubi that night," Minato points out. "I sealed it again -"

The genjutsu world reforms around them, changing from scorched Konoha landscape into the flat plains on which the Fourth Shinobi War had taken place. Even here, he can see the large army of shinobi against which he had faced for his new world - and, in the distance, the towering figure of what could only be the Juubi. He looks away before he can take in the two humanoid figures standing on top of it, and meets Minato's eyes. The man freezes, and that is how Obito knows that his 'Uchiha Madara' appearance had given way to his unmasked form.

"...Inside your son. I know." Obito swallows, because this was the hard part. "I... started the Fourth Shinobi War," he says in a rush. "In the end, I brought back the Juubi -" and quickly added, at Minato's flinch, " - though at a state of less power, because the jinchuriki for the Hachibi and Kyuubi were still free. Madara had been resurrected by then with Edo Tensei - he had died about a year after he first took me in."

Minato takes in the news without a single flicker of expression. "But you died," he points out calmly. "You wouldn't be here if you hadn't. You failed, didn't you?"

"The situation became more complicated than that," he admits. Technically, at the end, he hadn't failed in _his_ objective. But by then, that objective had been to make sure Kakashi and every one of his students got out of the war alive - not that Minato knew that.

"Madara wanted a true resurrection, not the half-life granted by Edo Tensei. Madara had put a control seal on me the moment he had dug me out from under those rocks. He had made use of it throughout my time with him, I have no doubt, but now he exercised full control... he forced me to perform the technique that would bring him back to life at the cost of my own."

Minato's eyes are wide as he takes in the ramifications of what Obito had just said. "Then, that was the last you remembered?"

"No," Obito says bluntly and just a bit too quickly, because he did not deserve the pity in the other man's voice. "Madara underestimated me. I subverted his technique at the last moment, and I used it to seal the Juubi within myself."

The genjutsu changes, yet again. Even without looking, he knows that the skin of his body had turned an unearthly pale, his hair a bleached white. Before Minato, now stands the monstrous form of the Juubi jinchuriki. Obito hears an intake of breathe from the other man, but presses on. "...And, that's where Naruto comes into the picture."

"My son," Minato says. He can't seem to look away from Obito, a look of horror on his face.

"Yes, your son." Obito allows himself a small, reluctant smile, and... he tells Minato everything.

The blonde stares in stunned disbelief as he talks about Naruto, the idiotic _brat_ (who had been too much like himself for comfort) who had seen something worth saving in the monster before him. Naruto, who had somehow dragged out what little remnants of Obito that had existed within _Tobi/Madara/nobody_ and forced him to see his actions for what they were. The _boy_ who had the sheer charisma and _heart_ to convince a damned man to come back into the light.

"That _worked_?" Minato asks, with no little amount of disbelief.

It spoke to just how revolutionary Uzumaki Naruto was for the shinobi world, when even the boy's father found the sheer power of his charisma unbelievable. In fact, Obito was doubtful that even his younger self saw the world in such optimistic terms. Had Naruto ever had to kill an enemy, or had he been able to convert all of them?

"For a minute or two... yes," Obito replies with a grimace. "But that was enough time for him to separate me from my power. Madara took advantage of my moment of weakness, and turned on me to engineer his own resurrection."

And then... that had been when he had found out about the sheer depth of Madara's manipulations. His hands clench into fists just at the memory. By then, he had already been jolted by Naruto from the steadfast certainty that two decades of blind faith had instilled within him. The knowledge that Rin had died because of him... that Obito had just been another one of Madara's _pawns_... it had been the last straw.

"Then..." Minato says slowly, evidently convinced that this was indeed the end of Uchiha Obito.

Obito couldn't help but grin. No, if nothing else, Uchiha Obito was _stubborn_. He had survived several tons of rock, several missing appendages, having the equivalent of ten tailed beasts ripped out of him at once, and a technique so chakra consuming that all previous users had perished as a result - in fact, it had taken complete and utter disintegration by a physical goddess/demon to keep him down.

"I survived," he says. "But after _that_ , after finding about what Madara did to Rin... I would be a fool to continue following Madara. I turned on him. After that, all my efforts were centered on getting Kakashi and his team out of the war alive - an incredibly difficult task, as you can imagine. That's how I died, incidentally - I took a fatal blow meant for Kakashi. That was the last thing I remembered, before waking up as a boy again."

A brief silence. Obito forces himself to meet Minato's eyes. He could no longer hide his many sins behind the promise of a new, better world. This was the only one he had, and he _would_ accept the consequences of what he had done.

"So," Minato says finally. "You're claiming that you're no longer planning on - what was it - subjugating the entire shinobi world under your and Madara's will? Obito, what reason do I have to _believe_ you? For all I know, you're telling me all of this just for the opportunity to put a knife in my back." Unspoken was: _After all, you already did it once before_.

He grimaces. "You don't have one," Obito says at last. "Nothing other than my words. I don't expect you to believe me. I don't expect you to forgive me - not for what I did to you, to K-Kushina-nee, to everyone else. I just need to - I want to take Madara down, along with the creature that's manipulating him. I know more about him than anyone else alive. I know his _weaknesses_. I... don't care about what you do with me afterwards."

"You destroyed my village," Minato says softly, and Obito _flinches_. "You ripped the Kyuubi from my wife's body and soul, and forced me to give my life to seal away the beast into my own son. You singlehandedly waged war against all shinobi in order to make your own new world."

A flare of chakra is Obito's only warning as the blonde disappears in his trademark yellow flash, and he panics because for this split second, he cannot tell where Minato was, even though this was _his_ genjutsu. It was impossible - or so he thought, and it is in this brief moment that he feels a sense of resignation. The other man could not take his revenge here, not in Obito's world of illusions, but breaking out was a matter of a simple ' _Kai_ ' and no thirteen year old, regardless of the age and experience of the soul, could stand against a vengeful Yellow Flash in his prime.

Not that he would try to fight back, not when he knew he deserved it. Obito feels the presence moving toward him at an insane speed, closes his eyes, and _braces_ -

\- for a warm hand to make contact with his head, ruffling his hair in a motion that he _remembered_ , even though it had been almost two decades since the last time he had been on the receiving end. With it comes a rush of emotions so familiar that it sends a chill down his spine, of surprise/outrage/ _joy_. Almost involuntarily, he squawks in indignation. "S-Sensei!"

\- and he freezes, because that hadn't been his voice since he had hit puberty more than a decade ago. This wasn't Uchiha Obito at thirty one. This was Obito at age thirteen, and this was Obito _now_.

The blonde - Minato - Minato-sensei gives him a small smile. "And after all of that... you still managed to turn back," the man says, and there is an odd tone of - could it be - _pride_ in his voice. "...I'm glad that you survived, Obito. I'm not nearly as glad about everything you did after that," he adds just as mildly, "but I suppose I do have my own share of blame to take for that."

Obito jolts. "W-Wha - Minato-sensei, the only people to blame for what I did are Uchiha Madara and myself, you -"

"And I was the reason you ended up in the hands of a master manipulator," the blonde says calmly. "Maybe it's irrational. But from what you've told me, you spent months at the whims of the enemy. That, with the seal he placed on you, as well as Rin's death... I have seen experienced shinobi crack under lesser circumstances, let alone a thirteen year old chunin."

"That doesn't excuse anything I did -"

"No, it doesn't." Minato-sensei sighs, sounding much more weary than his two decades. "...I'm not going to hurt you, Obito."

"You're not -"

"Angry? No, I'm very angry. In fact, I'm furious," and it only sounds more frightening in Minato-sensei's calm tones. "But not at you. Not _just_ at you, in any case. Though, I do have to warn you... if you end up on the same path you did then..." The threat was unspoken.

"Yeah," Obito says. It - It's relief that he feels at hearing that, not fear. He didn't want to be the man he had been - _never again_ , he swore. Even if he had to die before. _Especially_ if he had to die before. "I know. Thank you, Minato-sensei."

* * *

[A/N: A lot of stuff here. Please give me your feedback. My main point of concern is the Minato-Obito talk - too much exposition? Not enough exposition? Were the characters both in character? (Though yes, Obito's sudden change in personality from his shift from adult to child form was intentional.)

It is also here that I begin to lack a concrete plan for future chapters. Any suggestions? I have Kannabi Bridge in mind, but if anyone wants the story to go more off the rails from canon... I certainly wouldn't be adverse.]


	4. Chapter 4

Obito had been acting strangely, ever since their entire team had somehow returned to the past. Anyone else might have wrote it off just as an effect of the unexplained resurrections and time travel that had affected them all.

But Rin _knew_ Obito. She had always been able to read him, partly because Obito was practically an open book in that aspect, partly because she had known him for _years_. They had been friends throughout the Academy, and had even been put on the same team. In the end, the only secret that had been kept between the two of them... had been Obito's apparent infatuation for her, which had apparently been obvious for _years -_ at least, for everyone other than Nohara Rin.

But now, Obito's grins looked fake. Before, they would spread hugely across his face, almost visibly brightening up his surroundings with the sheer power of his joy.

When he had explained that he had survived Kannabi Bridge and, had in fact died years after the mission... she had believed him instantly. He was still Obito, true, but he wasn't the same Obito she had last seen crushed under a few tons of rock, gaping eye socket from where she had taken out his eye. This Obito was a more mature and darker ( _crueler_ ) version of the boy who had sacrificed his life for his teammate.

(Not that this meant he wasn't _still_ her best friend, because no matter what, he was still Uchiha Obito.)

The suspicions she had were confirmed the moment Obito caught Minato-sensei in a genjutsu, with Sharingan containing three tomoe - _mastered_ Sharingan, she realizes. Rin reacts on instinct, leaping forward with a, " _Obito -_ "

"It's fine, Rin," says Minato-sensei, straightening up with a small smile on his lips. "Obito just wanted to tell me something."

Just a few seconds had passed in between those moments, but Rin remembers, from the Academy: _a skilled genjutsu user could make years pass in a single second._ She hesitates before nodding, and then takes a step back.

Obito wipes at his eyes, his Sharingan already deactivated. "Rin, Kakashi," he says, voice hoarse, "there's a few things I need to tell you guys."

"...Even _more_?" Rin can't help but quip in an attempt to hide her nervousness. "Obito, you just told us that you survived having half of your body crushed, because Uchiha Madara saved you! I don't know if I can be surprised anymore, after that."

"Ehe... a lot of weird stuff happened happened in the shinobi world after you - that you don't know about, Rin. And actually... in the months after _you_ 'died' as well, Kakashi!" Obito explains, scratching the back of his head, a familiar gesture that seemed utterly at odds with the 'new' Obito. It was as if his personality had almost completely reverted back to the one that Rin was familiar with...

...What had Minato-sensei and Obito talked about, anyways?

"You outlived me?" Kakashi asks blankly.

Obito tenses slightly. "...Actually, when I died... you were still alive, Kakashi. Like I said before, Nagato - you know him as Pein - brought back everyone he killed during his attack on the village. You were among them. In fact... Minato-sensei was briefly alive as well, but he had been brought back with the Edo Tensei."

She blinks. "Obito, was I - ?"

"...No, you weren't," the Uchiha replies, his tone darkened.

"That's a relief," Rin says, as brightly as she could. "...Then I don't have to worry about doing things I don't remember doing! It would be embarrassing if my future self did something that I didn't agree with."

Obito grins weakly. "...You always look on the bright side of things, Rin."

"Though... I can't believe all of you guys are so ahead of me!" She says, half-teasingly. "I mean, Kakashi's _thirty_ , and Obito - you're even older. I don't think I ever expected to get stuck on a, team of old people!" Obito and Minato-sensei twitch almost simultaneously, and Rin struggles to hide her grin.

Kakashi's eyes crinkle, however. "I might be thirty, Rin," he says, completely seriously, "but I'll have you know - I'm still young and hip on the inside!"

Her jaw drops. "K- _Kakashi_!" She exclaims, and then she can't hold in her laughter anymore. "Y-You sound like _Gai!_ " Just the thought of her green jumpsuit wearing classmate nearly sends her into another fit of laughter, and then she _imagines_ Kakashi in the outfit - bowlcut and all - and she _chokes_. "...Kakashi, please tell me you didn't start dressing like him in the future."

He smirks - _smirks_ \- under his mask. "Maa, Rin... I do have to keep up appearances. I _am_ his Eternal Rival." With a start, Rin realizes that she can _hear_ the capital letters. _Oh Kami,_ she thinks, _I thought_ Gai _was the only one who could do that_. But then, that meant - was Kakashi - was he _serious_? The hilarity of the moment quickly transforms into horror.

"K-Kakashi," she says slowly. "You're joking... right?" Rin glances at both Minato-sensei and Obito in hopes of dispelling her nightmare. "...Right?"

Obito has a hand over his face, an aura of embarrassment almost visible around him. Minato-sensei, on the other hand, seems caught between laughter and horror. "I don't remember -" He starts. "That is - Kakashi wasn't dressing up like Maito Gai the last _I_ remembered... but maybe he started _after… I mean, he had more than ten years of time to_ -"

Slowly, Rin rotates to face Kakashi again. He gives her a completely innocent looking eye-smile.

...Suddenly, she regretted all those talks (or rather, sessions of mutual complaining) with Obito about how Kakashi would really benefit from a sense of humor. She's taking that back. She's taking _all_ of it back.

"Oi, Kakashi!" Obito shouts, finger pointed angrily. "Stop messing with Rin and Minato-sensei! I _know_ you don't wear that shitty jumpsuit - you just wear the jounin uniform like every other jounin, I saw!" Then, in calmer tones, "Don't worry, Rin - he's just being Bakashi."

Kakashi blinks once, the only sign of his surprise, before continuing, apparently nonplussed, "Maa, you don't know for sure though. I could have been wearing my special, personalized jumpsuit under my uniform. Are you telling me that you've never heard of the infamous Blue Beast of Konoha?"

Obito blanches with alarming alacrity. "K-Kakashi, you bastard -" He manages, before the two launch into a sort of bickering that would not have looked out of place during the time when they were _actually_ thirteen (or younger, in Kakashi's case.)

 _Just being Bakashi_ , she thinks suddenly, and it hits just how much things must have changed in the years she was - she was _dead_ , because the Kakashi she thought she knew... would not have made jokes like this. He was her teammate and she loved him (maybe a bit more than just platonic) but of everything that Kakashi was known for, a sense of humor was not one of them.

Her boys... weren't boys any longer, even if Obito was acting (for whatever reason) like he still was. They were adult men now, fully experienced shinobi - and she was still a teenaged _girl_ , left behind in their wake. It was ironic how, at least in terms of mental age, Minato-sensei was now the second youngest on the team.

Still, she puts on a smile. "Obito... didn't you say you had something to tell us?"

Her teammate freezes, about five seconds away from tackling Kakashi onto the floor. "...Yes. I do." A shadow seems to pass over his face, and when he looks up again, his eyes are more serious than she had ever seen on Obito's face. "If we want to keep ourselves from dying, _again_... we will need to overcome powerful enemies."

"The Iwa nin," Kakashi offers, suddenly serious as well. The sudden change in demeanor of both of her teammates is... well, _confusing_. "The Kiri nin who captured Rin. The Kyuubi. Orochimaru, and if we can manage it... Danzo. And after that... Akatsuki and its leader."

Before Rin could react out loud - Orochimaru, like... the _Sannin_? And wasn't the Kyuubi _sealed_ in - Obito grimaces. "Yes and no. Most of those can be traced back to a single power - Uchiha Madara."

Kakashi's eyes widen in shock. "Then, the Kyuubi - the _Akatsuki_ -"

"But - he's the man who rescued you," Rin says, stunned.

"That's how I know," Obito says blankly. "Uchiha Madara is not a man known for his benevolence. When he saved me... he had ulterior motives. He wanted a successor, to carry out his plans to fulfillment. A perfect world, with no hurt or loss... that was what he wanted, but in order to get it... he was willing to wage war against the whole world."

In one shining moment of clarity, Rin understands - why her best friend was so different, why he had been so reluctant to share details of the future, why he had never _came back -_ "You were his successor," she says out loud.

Minato-sensei, who had been so quiet the entire conversation, moves to put a hand on Obito's shoulder. He looks at her and Kakashi silently, and his eyes are pleading.

Obito is quiet for a long moment. "I - I fell into his trap. He let me out, after months of recovering, with the knowledge that my teammates were under attack. But by the time I got there -"

 _No_ , Rin thinks. Obito couldn't have been there - she would have noticed him, surely? Even with the nauseous burning of the Sanbi in her belly, whose presence was so overwhelming that she - despite all reason - felt as if she could feel it even _now_ \- she would have noticed Obito. Because, the alternative - the alternative was that... when Rin had launched herself in front of Kakashi's Chidori -

"You saw me kill Rin," Kakashi says, and there is a tone in his voice that Rin had become all too familiar in the aftermath of the Kannabi Bridge mission. _Self-hatred_ , and lots of it. "That's why you -"

"No," says Obito with a shake of his head. "I was... blind, I suppose, to reality. I always had been, but Madara used that flaw of mine to his advantage. He was the one to engineer Rin's capture - he _wanted_ me to see her -" his voice breaks, even as Rin's eyes grow wide at the revelation of the man behind her suffering. "It wasn't your fault, Kakashi. I never stopped to question the circumstances, so I just followed him and..." He grimaces. "And, I fucked up the world in the process."

He continues, without giving either she or Kakashi a chance to interrupt. "After Madara died, I took up his name. I was the one to have unleashed the Kyuubi on the village. I was the perpetrator of the Uchiha Clan massacre - though, the circumstances for that are rather... complicated. And... Kakashi, the leader of the Akatsuki wasn't Pein. He was just a figurehead - I had been giving him orders for much of the past decade."

For a long moment, Rin doesn't know what to say. Obito's future deeds were horrifying – the Uchiha Clan _massacre_? Unleashing the Kyuubi on the _village_? – but she had no idea what to do with the knowledge. The events weren't _real_ to her, not unlike the events of Konoha's founding almost a century ago, as she learned in the Academy. Objectively, she knew it happened – but she hadn't been there, had not seen the events personally.

No… she had died before she had the chance. And, according to Obito, if she _hadn't_ died then… none of that would have happened.

Which meant, as shocked and horrified as she was… it didn't do much to change her perspective of Obito. She couldn't see him as anything other than her best friend, especially not as the murderer and traitor he claimed to have become.

But Kakashi – _Kakashi_ had experienced all of that firsthand. That, on top of her knowledge that Kakashi and Obito had never gotten along, not until Obito had died – or 'died', as it was –

Rin whips around to where she knows her teammate had been standing, but there's no one there. "…Kakashi?"

As one, the remaining three members of the team turn to silently look at the open window. A single bird made its way across the clear sky, cawing loudly. A single dark figure leaped from roof to roof, growing ever distant.

"…I'll go after him," says Minato-sensei after a brief pause. "Obito, Rin – Go explore the village, familiarize yourself with it. It's likely very different from the last time either of you have seen it."

Without waiting for a reply, he jumps out the window. In a blink of an eye, the blonde has disappeared from view, heading to wherever Kakashi had ran off to.

"Rin," Obito says, haltingly. "Rin, I –"

"Don't worry, Minato-sensei will talk to him," she tells him, not nearly as confident as she tries to sound. "…Come on, Obito! Let's get out of here already. I can't believe we got stuck talking here for more than an _hour_!"

"…Yeah," he agrees, with the slightest hesitation. "Yeah, let's go."

* * *

Almost instinctively, Kakashi makes his way to the Memorial Stone. For close to two decades, the memorial had been a second home. In fact, he knew for a fact that he spent more time standing in front of that massive black rock than in his actual apartment.

When he wasn't on a mission, Kakashi visited the memorial nearly every morning. He would spend an hour or so telling Obito about everything that had been happening in the world. More time than he spent talking to Rin and Minato-sensei, he had to admit, because in the end… Obito had been his greatest failure.

He imagined that he enjoyed his tales of Team Seven, of boisterous Naruto and stoic Sasuke and Sakura, who just never gave up. In his darkest moments - as he desperately tried to close up a gut wound in the aftermath of a mission gone bad, as yet another friend died because of his mistakes, _as he sees Naruto bleeding out on the ground from what could only be a_ Chidori _inflicted wound_ – he thought that he could hear Obito talking to him.

 _/ "Dammit Kakashi,"_ his personal specter of the past said with a long suffering sigh, as Kakashi pulled his mask down and spat out a glob of bloody spit to the side. _"I_ wanted _to see your face, but_ not _like this. Come on,_ Minato-sensei _and Kushina-nee are still waiting for you back in the village! Don't let them down, alright, bastard? As if a measly kunai – or uh, four of them, I guess – could get_ you. _"_

 _"I-It's okay, Kakashi. It wasn't your fault. These things… they just happen. Sensei will understand, alright? Don't feel guilty about this!"_

 _"Sensei and Kushina-nee…"_ A swallow. _"Huh, I guess I'm not the one everyone's waiting for_ this _time. But Kakashi… Don't you dare come early, alright? I swear, Rin's punching her fist into her hand really hard, and I'm kinda scared… "/_

He knew perfectly well that it wasn't healthy to hear dead people talking to him. But neither was it healthy to model every part of his life after an idealized version of a deceased thirteen year old boy, but Kakashi had done that as well. For years, he had internalized every part of Obito's advice, his ideals of teamwork and friendship. He had viewed every situation through the lens of, "What would Obito have done?" and every failure with the shameful knowledge that, " _Obito_ wouldn't have failed."

 _Obito wouldn't have let Rin die. Obito wouldn't have let Sasuke leave. Obito wouldn't have let Naruto grow up alone. Obito wouldn't have been such a horrible sensei that his students would only achieve their full potential under others._

In short, he had put the boy on a ridiculously high pedestal, and with Obito's revelations, that pedestal had cracked badly.

It was clear that Obito had switched his loyalties back to Konoha – if he had still wanted the bijuu, Obito would have taken down both him and Rin with the element of surprise, and have gone after Kushina immediately. So, he wasn't a danger.

But that wasn't the _point._ The point was, after all those years… faced with a Uchiha Obito who wasn't a thirteen year old, octogenarian serving saint – and, in fact, was a thirty-some year old traitor/missing nin/leader of the fucking _Akatsuki_ – Kakashi wasn't sure what to do. With the concrete knowledge that no, Obito wouldn't have done any better (and in fact, _hadn't_ done any better) and had also been changed by the realities of the world – particularly knowing that he himself had a very large part in it –

Kakashi felt like he had the rug pulled out from under his feet, the foundations of his world shattered beyond recognition. For so long, this Memorial Stone had formed the cornerstone of his existence. Now, it was stripped of the very names he had always came to see. _Uchiha Obito. Nohara Rin. Namikaze Minato. Uzumaki Kushina._

"Somehow," says Minato-sensei from behind him, voice low and calm, "I knew I would find you here."

He doesn't jump in surprise. If anything else, it was just a little – jolt, he decided. He just wasn't used to Minato-sensei's stealth entrances, not after so many years. "Oh?"

"You came here every day for months after Obito's funeral. After what happened to Rin, you started again. It was a safe assumption."

"I did, huh?" Kakashi turns with a sigh. "…This is about Obito, isn't it."

"You did make a very dramatic exit," Minato-sensei observes mildly.

Well, yes, thinking back… yes, he did. But in that moment, he had been less concerned about _that_ , and more about the implications of what Obito had said, and the sudden need to get _out_ –

"I know that Obito's on our side," he says. "I won't go after him for revenge, if that's what you're thinking."

"Actually, I was wondering about something else. I only remember up to my own death, of course, but… from what I remember, Obito's death changed you greatly. In the week after his funeral… you came late to everything. With the most ridiculous excuses, too." Sensei shakes his head. "I don't know who you thought you were fooling - Rin and I both knew you were here, at the Memorial Stone."

"…But it was more the principle of it, wasn't it, Kakashi? Obito was late all the time, so you were too. Obito always had terrible excuses, so you did as well."

"Sensei –"

"Obito isn't the same as he was as thirteen, Kakashi. I don't know much about the new Obito. I highly suspect that Obito isn't very sure himself." Sensei sighs. "The dead are constant, but the living is always changing, Kakashi. This is a truth that we need to accept."

True, much of him was moored in the past. It seemed that, ironically enough, it was being in the past that would let him to move forward.

Kakashi nods, and turns away from the Memorial Stone.

* * *

[A/N: So, super long author's note:

I struggled with Kakashi's reaction quite a bit. My first few hundred words included physical harm and a whole lot of anger – which, I feel, didn't really fit. Yes, he fought and tried to kill Obito during the FSW, but that had been a matter of life and death. He definitely had issues with doing it. In different circumstances, I feel like he would have time to deal with the emotional/mental fallout from these revelations.

Sorry about the long wait! I've been having very sporadic Internet, so it took me a while to get this chapter written up and updated. Thank you for all the reviews! The suggestions all of you gave me have been really helpful, and will come up in the next chapter, which – as you may have guessed – has more to do with the interactions between Team Minato and the rest of the village.

I'm also going to have some bonus chapters, posted for every review milestone the fic reaches - partly because I want excuse to explore more of this verse, partly because I really would like more suggestions and feedback. Did I do a thing right? Did I do it wrong? What could I do better? Etc. They'll be non-canon, a lot less serious, and will probably include a lot of additional time/dimension travel (I'll also be taking suggestions for these, though I do have an idea for the first bonus chapter.) They'll also be slightly less than the length of a regular chapter – that is, 2-3k words. So - something to look forward to, I guess.

But yeah, please hit me up with any suggestions or feedback! I'm not sure about, well, basically everything to do with Kakashi in this chapter, so if any of you have advice on that, I would seriously appreciate it. Anyways, I'm trying to get all the exposition/talking parts of this fic done ASAP so we can move on to the actual plot progression.]


	5. Chapter 5

Sunlight hits Obito's eyes the moment he walks out the door, and he blinks away the remnants with a shake of his head. There is a lump in his throat as he takes in the view before him – the brightly colored rooftops, the bright green foliage that had given the village its name, the distant, humbling view of the Hokage Monument, with three faces instead of the four, five that he still expects to see.

It's beautiful.

It had been almost two decades since the last time Obito saw the village like this. As Madara, he had brought death and pain and fire in the dead of night, had felt triumph as the Kyuubi laid waste to Obito's former comrades, even as the wounds that Minato ( _sensei_ ) had dealt him throbbed in dull pain. He wonders if daylight and the familiarity of home, would have made any difference to his twisted mind, back then.

Probably not.

He only realizes that he has halted in his steps when Rin says, concerned, "Obito… are you alright?"

Obito blinks. "I…" He trails off.

In his years as Madara, he had found himself privy to dozens of Konoha's dark secrets, a tainted history of the village that his thirteen year old self could have never fathomed. The existence of ROOT and its spiriting away of the brightest orphans the village had to offer had been a shock – it came as no surprise to him whatsoever to find out, after some thoughtful digging, that Kakashi himself had narrowly avoided being inducted into its faceless ranks. The political schemes that had connected Danzo and a myriad of warlords (including, eventually, himself) across the nations had been nothing but a useful tool, after that revelation.

Subconsciously, he had used this knowledge in order to justify his actions. The village deserved it. The Clan had deserved it. The village had espoused their 'Will of Fire' and yet, they had still sent children to fight and die on the battlefield.

Perhaps, without Madara's manipulations, he could have been someone like Naruto, who had seen the truth of the shinobi world, and yet, still held the faith that it could be changed, could be _reformed_. Instead, he had been driven to destruction – tear it all down and start anew, make a world of _truth_ (of _lies_ ) – because it had been easier than accepting reality.

The Hokage Monument seems oddly lacking, without Minato-sensei, without Tsunade, without _Kakashi_ – because if the bastard didn't take up the post, Obito would have found some way to haunt him from beyond the grave.

Obito no longer held the dream of Hokage, because all that had been was a physical manifestation of his desire for acknowledgement and acceptance. But now, his team stood on the precipice of a new era – the possibility of _change_ bright in front of them.

He smiles. "Yeah, Rin. I'm good."

Walking through the Uchiha Compound was a unique kind of torture. Which of the men and women around him had he killed personally? Which of them had died, instead, in the Kyuubi attack? Obito finds himself flinching every time a fellow clan member meets his eyes, and oddly stunned as they look away, dismissive.

It had been years that he had been truly overlooked. He was used to being powerful – a fact that he could admit with no compunctions, because he had the Mokuton, the Mangekyo, along with half a dozen other abilities and powers that would have made his thirteen year old self cry with joy. With Madara's reputation, he had been on equal and superior footing to shinobi powers decades older than him.

Now, he was a thirteen year old child, a somewhat lackluster Uchiha chunin who – as far as anyone not on his team knew – had not even unlocked the first stage of his Sharingan. As far as history knew, he would be dead and forgotten within the month.

Over the years, Obito had learned the value of being underestimated. His entire Tobi persona had been proof to that, even if the routine hadn't been enough to fool anyone by the end.

This… This was going to be _fun_.

They're about halfway down the street when Rin taps him on the shoulder. "I'm not sure if I want to know what you're grinning about, Obito," she says, "but I think there's someone over there who wants to get your attention!"

His eyes follow the direction of her pointing finger and fixate on a single pudgy hand waving behind an oil-smudged window. Moments later, a small, grinning face pops into view.

Obito's heart sinks as he sees the tiny facial creases, and he can practically hear the ' _Obito-nii!_ ' that the boy mouths so eagerly. "I'll catch up to you later, Rin. That's my baby cousin."

"Oh, so that's why he looks so familiar!"

"You've met Itachi before?" He can't help but ask, bewildered.

Rin bites her lip, and Obito knows that he had asked the wrong question. "He was at your funeral," she says finally, and he can't say anything other than a weak, "Oh."

"Anyways," she says quickly, "you should go say hi! It's been a long time since you've last seen him, right? I'm heading to the hospital, if you need to find me later."

Obito isn't nearly masochistic enough to tell her that it had been a much shorter time than she assumed. "…I'll see you later, Rin."

He watches as she leaves, brown hair blowing haphazardly in the wind as she runs. A second later, a weight clamps onto his lower waist, and it's so unexpected that he almost uses Kamui to dodge. "Ack!" Obito yelps, and then freezes when large black eyes stare up at him.

"You're _late_ , Obito-nii!" The boy accuses, a pout on his face. "...Don't tell me that you were going to ditch me for that girl you like!"

"Itachi," he breathes. Obito cannot see any of the hardened killer he had known in the face of this small child, none of the man who had been one of the most feared members of the Akatsuki, who had been just another one of Madara's ( _his_ ) pawns.

But Itachi had always been more perceptive as a child than most shinobi in the village. The boy's arms loosen from his torso, and he asks seriously, "Is there something wrong, Obito-nii?"

He pastes a smile on his face, and hopes it reaches his eyes. "I'm fine, Itachi-chan! I just woke up late today… I guess my alarm clock finally died. Am I babysitting you today?" Obito asks, taking a wild guess.

Judging by the narrowing of Itachi's eyes, Obito's smile had fooled no one. "You said you were going to take to get dango today, Obito-nii," he said plaintively.

"D-Dango, huh?" He stutters, as it hits him that he had no idea at all where the dango place was. It had been _years_ , in his defense, and it wasn't as if sweets were on his mind at all during his leadership of Akatsuki and his launching of the Fourth Shinobi War. "There's the place, uh, near the Hokage Tower, right?"

"Are you still asleep, Obito-nii?" The boy asks with a frown. "…Kaa-san's going to catch us if we don't go now!" He yanks on Obito's hand, and Obito allows himself to be pulled forward.

As it turned out, the dango stand _was_ near the Hokage Tower, the bright green banner proclaiming the prices and the day's specials in vibrant red paint. As a kindly old woman takes their orders with a smile, Obito tries valiantly not to wonder if she had been one of the first casualties of the Kyuubi, practically incinerated by the sheer power of the creature's chakra.

"I'll have the bocchan dango," he says after a brief moment, picking it randomly off of the single page menu.

The last time Obito had the sweet, he had been with a certain bombastic blonde and had spent most of the time trying to figure out how to eat the thing through a mask with only one eye hole. In the end, he had cheated and used Kamui. Sometimes, he really wondered how Kakashi did it.

"Me too!" Itachi pipes up beside him. As the elderly woman retrieves their menus, the boy whispers, "Eh, Obito-nii… why did you get the bocchan?"

"Huh?"

"You told me that you hated eggs, so you always get the chadango instead!" Green tea, huh?

Honestly, Obito had no memory of the fact. "I just wanted to try something new," he says weakly. "I mean, eggs aren't that bad."

Not that he remembered what they tasted like, what with him not having to eat for the past two decades. Having plant matter composing half of his body meant that he could devote all of his life to Madara's plans, without wasting precious hours on eating or sleeping. It was a shock to feel _hunger_ at all.

Moments later, when the dango arrived piping hot in front of them, Obito quickly finds himself regretting his decision. He gags on the yellow piece of _disgusting slime, never again_ but chokes it down when Itachi gives him an odd look.

"…Must have gone down the wrong way," he mutters, and surreptitiously wonders if he can Kamui the other piece away. Surely, that didn't count as misuse of an S-rank space-time jutsu.

"Kaa-san told me that if you eat too fast, you'll choke," Itachi says seriously. "You can't just swallow down dango like that, Obito-nii!"

"I'll keep it in mind," Obito replies with a smile, trying to get over the novelty of being lectured by a four year old. "What's going on, Itachi-chan? It's been a while since the last time we talked." At least, he hopes it had been. As unique the circumstances were, it was a bit embarrassing for him to be caught in a lie by a toddler (albeit, a genius one) multiple times in a conversation.

Luckily, he had guessed correctly. The small boy squints in thought. "Otou-san wants me to enter the Academy next year," he says.

Obito would be surprised, if he hadn't known about how Itachi flew through the ranks in his previous timeline. In fact, if he remembered correctly, the boy would graduate at 7, a full two years before himself. "Huh, that's pretty early," he says noncommittally. In peacetime, most Academy students enrolled at eight, barring exceptions like Kakashi.

"Uh-huh. Kaa-san doesn't want me to go. She thinks I'm too young." Itachi pauses, and then mutters, as if imparting a deep secret – and for all Obito knew, it _was_ – "…I don't want to go, either."

Obito's dango halts halfway to his mouth, and he blinks in shock. Itachi… didn't want to enter the Academy early? But he was a genius – and even more so, he had _motivation_. Even with all the innate skill and intelligence in the world, one didn't make ANBU Captain at thirteen without _wanting_ to, as countless generations of Nara have exhibited. "…Eh? Why not?"

Itachi furrows his brows in thought. "Obito-nii… if I tell you about this, will you promise not to tell anyone? Not even kaa-san." He holds out a hand, pinky outstretched. "Pinky promise, Obito-nii?"

The gesture was so... childish ( _normal_ ) that, for a moment, he can't help but stare in stunned disbelief. How had the person – the _kid_ in front of him turned into the Uchiha Itachi he had been familiar with in the future?

Yes, Obito knew the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre, probably more so than anyone else alive, considering he had partook in it – but even without the label of 'insane killer of his entire clan,' Itachi was hardly the most personable of people. But the Itachi in front him… was by all means, a normal, if especially perceptive and intelligent, child.

"Sure," he says weakly, and loops the kid's pudgy finger with his own. "I promise, Itachi-chan. Not even to your mom."

"Some of otou-san's friends say things about me, when they don't think I'm there." Itachi bites his lip. "…It's because I don't like to train a lot, so they don't think I will be a good heir. Otou-san wants me to join the Academy to show them that I want to be a strong shinobi."

For the first time since Obito had woken up in the past, he feels as if he does not hold all the cards in his hands. After so many years working with the adult Itachi, he had thought he understood everything about the clan genius. But it was now apparent that he had been working under false pretenses. He had _underestimated_ the man. When had Itachi ever been seen as anything other than the pride of the clan?

"Training is easy for you, ne? You'll be a strong shinobi for sure!"

"Obito-nii…" The boy swallows. "…I don't want to be a shinobi, Obito-nii." He says it as if admitting to a grievous crime. In a shinobi village, as the heir to one of its foremost clans… it might as well be. "I don't want to fight in a war and kill people, not when we can have peace. I – I read a lot about the world, and – I _know_ the villages can stop fighting one day, and no one else will have to die. I don't want to go to the Academy now… but I don't want to go there in the future either."

For one stunned moment, Obito wonders if he was still in the same universe. Uchiha Itachi… a _pacifist_? One of the strongest shinobi of his generation, someone who couldn't stand the thought of killing?

But… it explained so much. Itachi and Nagato had always gotten along better than he had ever expected, and it certainly brought a new dimension to Itachi's refusal to allow the Uchiha coup to take place. It was impressive, really, how the man had kept it hidden from the manipulator he had believed to be Madara – Obito shuddered to think of how much easier it would have been to play Itachi if he had known the truth, back then.

Obito looks at the boy in front of him, a child of peace born into a village destined for war – and smiles, big and wide. Screw the timeline – he had done enough to destroy Itachi's life, it was time that he did something to fix it. "Itachi-chan," he says, "you don't have to be a shinobi. Not if you don't want to."

Itachi blinks, eyes wide. "But otou-san, all of otou-san's friends –" He says uncertainly.

"I hate war as well. But… I think the villages will one day find peace," Obito says, thinking of the forces of the five great villages, united against a common enemy – _him_. Yes, he was certain that the inter-village violence and constant political jockeying would one day come to an end – he just hoped he didn't have to start a war for it to happen.

His thirteen year old self had been excited enough to fight, to actually use his abilities on the battlefield. But as Minato-sensei had told him then, war was not a game. It had taken his mutilation, Rin's death, and adulthood to realize it.

"But – _you're_ shinobi, Obito-nii."

"Yeah, I am. As a shinobi, I have the power to protect the people I care about – my teammates, my friends… and you as well, Itachi-chan. I don't _want_ to kill people, but… it's a sad fact of this reality. And it will stay that way, until there are people who decide to change it."

Itachi blinks, and narrows his eyes. "I – I want to change that, Obito-nii!" He decides, his eagerness obvious.

In that moment, Obito can't help but find it ridiculously adorable. If Rin was here right now, she would probably squish the kid's cheeks. "Yeah," he chuckles. "…Yeah, me too. But Itachi-chan…" Obito says, serious again. "In this world, you have to be strong in order to change it. You've heard about Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, right…? They wanted peace as well, and that's why they made this village. But in order to do it, they had to be very strong – in fact, they were probably the strongest shinobi alive, back then."

He smiles, a bit sadly. "I told you that you don't have to be shinobi if you don't want to. I don't think you should be forced into something like that. But being a shinobi is also more than just killing and fighting. It's about protecting the people you care about, and it's also about becoming strong enough to make a difference."

Because… in the end, that was how it worked. Even Naruto could not have accomplished what he could without the Kyuubi sealed within him, or his large amounts of chakra. Even he could not have put his outrageous amount of charisma to use beyond the grave. There was a reason that the only civilian powers that survived were the ones that had become too inconvenient to kill off.

After a moment, Itachi nods. "I understand, Obito-nii. I still don't want to be a shinobi, but… I want to protect my kaa-san, my otou-san, my future little brother – and I want to protect you too, Obito-nii!"

Obito blinks, aghast. "M-Me?" Should he be offended at the prospect of being protected by a four year old?

"You're my favorite cousin, Obito-nii! No one else gets me dango, and… no one else ever said it was okay to not be shinobi, not even kaa-san and otou-san." Itachi's smile is wide on his face, and for a moment, Obito is unsure of what emotion he feels swirling in his gut.

Oh, right – crushing guilt. He returns a pained grin, and tries not to think of the older Itachi, dead at the hands of his own, beloved younger brother. "I'm glad, Itachi-chan."

"...I think kaa-san is going to be back from visiting her friend soon, Obito-nii," the boy says, after a glance at the clock hanging from the dango stand wall. "I have to get back before she comes home, or else she'll get mad at me. You'll take me to get dango next week too, right?"

He's about to say yes, before he remembers what the next week means for him. "I'm sorry, Itachi-chan. I can't - I have a mission." Kannabi Bridge. And, if all went according to his plans... that mission would mean the end of Uchiha Madara and his immortal manipulator's plans for the shinobi world.

"Then next week! Bye, Obito-nii!" And before Obito can ask if the kid needs someone to take him home - he was _four_ \- Itachi was off and running into the distance.

Obito watches him go. Talking to Itachi - _this_ Itachi - had been a shock. Had Itachi been like in his own timeline? Had the boy ever revealed to his older cousin his pacifist nature, back then? It had been so many years since then, that it was certainly possible that Obito had just forgotten about the words of a baby cousin.

Having half of his head smashed in by a rock certainly did nothing to help his memory, and neither did the large amount of trauma he had underwent shortly after it. By the time he had seen Itachi again, he had been firmly entrenched in the persona of Madara - Madara, who had no reason to remember any bit of Obito's past, who had no mercy for anyone who had treated Obito kindly during his childhood years.

What had set Itachi on the path to being a shinobi - and, even worse, a weapon? Yes, the carnage and death that had came with war and, soon afterwards, the Kyuubi attack. But Itachi had joined the Academy _now_ , not then. As little as he remembered about his childhood, Obito knew that he would have never urged a four year old to become a killer, especially when the kid was so set against it. So, what had motivated Itachi to join? And he must have agreed to it, because as much of a hardass Fugaku had always been, Mikoto was never one to back down, not when family was at stake. Obito was evidence enough of that.

And then, it dawns on him. The irony is so thick that Obito wants to laugh.

 _You're my favorite cousin, Obito-nii!_

Yes, Itachi had a heart-to-heart with his favorite cousin, Obito-nii, who had - no doubt - encouraged him to follow his dreams and not listen to anyone who wanted him to do otherwise. That was the kind of person that thirteen year old Uchiha Obito _was_ (and he refused to think about the implications of the fact that _he_ had told Itachi pretty much the same.)

And then, days afterwards, the same Obito-nii was crushed under a boulder in Iwa, never to take little Itachi-chan to dango again. What could Itachi do but the take the only path he thought he could take, in order to protect his family the way he couldn't protect his Obito-nii?

And, unbeknownst to either of them, the same Obito-nii would emerge decades later to prey on a talented young ANBU Captain in an unenviable position, under the guise of a mutual ancestor.

Obito put a hand to his face... He had screwed up Itachi's life even more than he knew.

"...Cute kid, huh?" Kakashi says from next to him. "I see you channeled Naruto a bit."

He lets out a rather undignified squawk of surprise, and whips around. " _Kakashi?_ "

"He was on my ANBU squad for a few months, you know. Adorable pre-teen killer, though I guess I can't say much about that, considering who _I_ am. Stoic, but he called me Kakashi-senpai. Kakashi- _senpai_. And here, I thought only Tenzou did that." Kakashi shakes his head, a single stick of Itachi's left over dango in his hand as he sits on the seat the boy had just vacated. "He wouldn't say much most of the time, but give him just a little bit of painkillers, and he would go on and on about his Obito-nii, and how he never came back again-"

His eyes narrow. "Kakashi, what is your _point_."

"Well, it was pretty sad. I cried a bit, even," Kakashi says blandly. "Though, I have to say... I was pretty surprised when the cute kid slaughtered his entire clan and turned traitor. But... from what you mentioned before, there was more to it then that, huh?"

* * *

[A/N: ...And the Danzo-ROOT conversation is for the next chapter. Hehe.

This chapter had a lot of my headcanons for kid Itachi and his interaction with Obito. I based their relationship in this chapter off of 'Shame and Fame' (in which Obito's death resulted in Itachi taking the path he takes in canon, though in a different way than in the fic) and 'A Mirror, In Two Parts' (for the headcanon that Itachi was looked down by his clan before he showed his aptitude for, well, being a shinobi.)

Again, I would really appreciate your feedback on the chapter, as well as any suggestions to things I can improve. I know there's not a lot of action or explicit game changing events, but the nature of the fic means that things won't start rolling until the Kannabi Bridge mission. The next chapter will be, as I mentioned before, on the Danzo-ROOT issue, as well as Minato sorting things out with Kushina. Depending on length, there might also be the long awaited Kakashi-Gai 'reunion'. And, judging by the review counts for each chapter, after that should be the bonus. That will be fun.]


	6. Chapter 6

"Not here," Obito says with a frown.

That is the only warning Kakashi gets before the Uchiha's eyes swirl into black on red, a pattern that he recognized from the Mangekyo that had been in his head for close to two decades.

" _Kamui._ "

Kakashi's eyes widen in shock as the world distorts around him, a nauseating twisting sensation at his navel. Before he can react otherwise, the familiar sight of Konoha had been replaced by an endless landscape of monochrome cubes and fathomless chasms.

He blinks, genius mind quickly slotting together the pieces he had been handed. "…Aa. So, this is the other dimension, Obito?"

The boy nods, his Sharingan deactivating. "We can be sure of its security. It's connected directly to my Sharingan, so only you and I can access it."

Kakashi had never thought much of the mirror side to his Mangekyo abilities. But then again, he had never expected to ever see the other eye in action. "Just you, now," he notes.

"…Yeah," Obito agrees, with a twist of his lips. "…For now."

There is a promise in his words that Kakashi ignores. He bends over to press two fingers on the strangely cool ground, wondering briefly just how this place came to be. What kind of material was this?

"That was pretty careless, Obito," he says lightly, getting up. "There were a few dozen people around us. Any of them could have noticed our disappearance."

"Damn it, Kakashi," says the other with a sigh, though the lack of actual anger in his tone betrays his harsh words. "You're still looking down on me, huh? …I'm not an _idiot._ "

"Then -?"

"Genjutsu. I had my Sharingan activated, remember?" Obito shrugs. "Anyone who had the two of us in their vision now remembers watching us walk away in the direction of the Hokage Tower."

It is a casual reminder that the person in front of him is not what he seems. In his youth, Obito had never been particularly skilled at genjutsu – the precise manipulations so important for its success was lost to the brash and impulsive boy that Obito had been. It seems that _that_ had changed over the years, along with everything else.

Kakashi accepts it wordlessly. "Maa, Obito... any reason that you are so paranoid about spies, when we're in our own village?"

"You're lecturing _me_ on paranoia, Kakashi? Now _that's_ a first."

He looks at the Uchiha pointedly.

"…I don't know how far Danzo's reach is, at this point," Obito admits after a moment.

"Danzo?" Kakashi knew of the elder who had been a teammate of the Sandaime, who was unknown to most of the shinobi in the village just because of how unobtrusive he was. In fact… he knew a lot more than that, due to his own long acquaintance with Tenzo and Sai. He just wasn't sure how Obito did.

"The Uchiha Clan massacre took place on his orders," Obito reveals, without the bat of an eyelid. "I would rather him not find out about our… situation – at least, not until we want him to."

That… was surprising. Kakashi blinks slowly. "Aa? Orders?"

Mentally, his thoughts are already whirling. Kakashi was well aware of the more morally ambiguous part of his village, more so than his blonde, Hokage aspirant of a student ever knew – would ever want to know, in all honesty. ROOT was horrifying, but more because it was an outright challenge to the authority of the Hokage than because of the age of the recruits, or because of the brutality of the training program.

Kakashi himself had become a soldier at age five, after all.

If Danzo – a Konoha elder – had ordered the execution of an entire clan, especially the _Uchiha_ – a founding clan, then there must have been a reason. Unbidden, Kakashi remembered the frosty demeanor of Obito's clan on one of his rare occasions venturing into the district. Of course, it could be because of his eye, but…

"The Uchiha Clan began planning a coup against the village after the Kyuubi attack," is all that Obito says, but it's enough for Kakashi to click together the pieces.

A thirteen year old Uchiha Itachi, caught between his Clan and the village, between war and peace – even one built on the blood of his family. The dual blows of the Kyuubi attack and the defection of one of its oldest clans… well, the other villages would have been drawn like sharks to blood.

Still, one question remains - the dispatching of a thirteen year old – however skilled – to murder such an elite clan was… questionable, regardless of the reasoning. What if Itachi had died in the attempt? Or, if he had been captured, or regretted his decision, or any of the dozens of possibilities that could have arisen… war would have been imminent.

Not to mention, there had to have been another option to deal with the situation other than outright slaughter. Such a one-dimensional approach spoke of fear – and outside manipulation.

"Maa, Obito… didn't you mention that you were involved in that?" He says lightly.

The Uchiha grimaces. "…Yeah. Most of that – that was me. All that Itachi was responsible were his parents and –"

"And Sasuke."

"…Yeah. And Sasuke."

It's an oblique enough reference to how Itachi had traumatized his younger brother for life, setting him on a path to vengeance.

Kakashi pitied the man, despite the hours of torture Itachi had inflicted upon him, but he by no means respected his actions. Not when he destroyed Kakashi's team by mentally breaking Sasuke all over again, destroying any bit of normalcy the boy had managed to regain in his months on Team 7.

Even though Sasuke had been a former student for longer than he had ever been Kakashi's actual student, he still felt protective over the kid. It was all he could to quell the inexplicable anger that came with the knowledge that Obito had been a part of that Massacre, had played a role in creating the mindless avenger Sasuke become.

Kakashi remembered the carnage that had been left in the wake of the Uchiha Massacre, had even thought, looking at the corpses, that the killing blows were too emotional to be Itachi's work. Back then, he had taken it as a sign that Itachi had been hiding more than Kakashi had ever known.

But now, it made a horrifying kind of sense.

"…Your clan sure misjudged you, huh? They thought you were weak, but in the end, you had the power to kill them all. You proved them wrong in the end… didn't you?"

The split second before Obito grabbed him up in the air by the chest straps of his uniform is all the time he had to regret the words of impulse that had come out of his mouth.

"I-It wasn't like that!" Obito says weakly, eyes wide.

Obito's iron grip brings back unpleasant memories, and Kakashi barely hears the words coming out of the boy's mouth over the overwhelming need to get _away._

"I was part of the ANBU assigned to investigate the aftermath," Kakashi says softly. "I saw those bodies, Obito."

The moment Kakashi feels a slackening of Obito's grip, he takes advantage of the miniscule increase in freedom of movement to elbow the other boy in the face.

But before it hits flesh, Obito's other hand is already up to block the strike.

Kakashi only has enough time to blink once, realizing for a second that Obito seemed just as surprised as he did – muscle memory, perhaps? – before he twists and _kicks_ , and this time the blow connects.

Obito yelps in surprise as the force of Kakashi's foot sends him stumbling back a few inches, but in the seconds between, he automatically yanks down on the jounin's still outstretched leg, sending him crashing down on the strange ground.

And, just like that, they're trading blows.

It's all taijutsu, thankfully – in fact, it reminds him somewhat of the old days of Team Minato, during which Kakashi and Obito would often end up grappling in the dirt, completely undignified, as Rin shouted at them, obviously annoyed, to 'get up and stop being idiots already, Minato-sensei's going to show up any minute now!'

But, at the same time, it's clearly not a brawl between two preteen chunin.

Whoever had trained Obito over the years, had done so _well_. Obito is _fast_ , his movements lithe and calculated in a way that spoke to thousands of hours of training. He moves to kill, but what would normally be mortal blows are dulled to bruises by the lack of physical strength of a child's body.

So does Kakashi, because ANBU rarely had place for mercy or a soft touch.

Still, he is momentarily surprised that Obito could keep up with an ANBU Commander (albeit one in an unfamiliar preteen body) in terms of speed and experience – and then he remembers that no, thirteen year old chunin Obito could never had been able to, but the Obito who had been the leader of a band of S-ranked missing nin certainly _could_.

Kakashi takes advantage of a second-long hesitation and sweeps Obito off his feet with a chakra-enforced circular kick.

The Uchiha slams onto the ground, face first – and Kakashi hears a familiar crunch of cartilage – but pulls Kakashi down with him with a single hand, in an unexpected display of strength.

Ironically, the next few minutes consist of some of the most undignified brawling that Kakashi had participated in since the age of eleven. There was a lot of squirming involved. Probably some head-butting.

Most definitely hair pulling, and, Kakashi admits, just one case of –

"…That… was _ridiculous_ ," Obito complains between gasps for air, voice congested as he covers his bleeding, broken nose with a single shaking hand. "I can't believe you _bit_ me. Kakashi, what the hell? …How did you even do that with your mask on?"

As it turns out, regardless of the amount of training, an untrained preteen body just couldn't sustain certain fighting styles for long.

Kakashi sits just a few feet away from him, panting equally loudly – though in a bit more dignified way, he would hope, glancing over at Obito's practically hyperventilating form.

He shrugs at Obito's question. Kakashi could finish a bowl of Ichiraku's within seconds; this was nothing. "…A shinobi never reveals his secrets."

"Secrets, my ass. What's _really_ a secret is what's behind that mask of yours –"

"It's just my face. Nothing else."

Obito pauses. "…No huge lips?" Kakashi shakes his head. "Buck teeth? An extra eye?" He tries.

"I have a mole," he offers.

"I can't believe this," Obito groans after a moment of stunned silence. "Twenty years of wondering why a guy covers half of his face since the age of five, and it turns out that it's because of a _mole_."

"Maa, I didn't wear my mask just because of a mole. I have a mole, yes, but the reason I wear a mask is completely different. Give me some credit, Obito."

"Then why -?" The Uchiha groans again. "…You're terrible, Kakashi."

Their impromptu spar seemed to have lowered tensions a bit. The banter is ridiculously easy to fall into, and it is just as easy for Kakashi to forget just who it was sitting a few feet away from him.

But judging from Obito's sudden silence, his teammate had also found it no longer possible to ignore the metaphorical large, pink elephant in the Kamui dimension. An awkward silence prevailed for a few minutes.

"Danzo and Orochimaru both need to be taken care of. I wasn't lying when I said that the village will face many enemies in the next few years," Obito says finally, after a very long pause – during which, any kind of humor had been leeched from the air around them. "But… no matter what, I won't be one of them. Not this time."

"You and the Uchiha Clan –"

"I had no right," his teammate interrupts, voice grave. "They only turned against the village because Danzo rightfully suspected an Uchiha behind the Kyuubi attack. When I returned… I did so to stoke conflict. I didn't expect Itachi, but –" He grimaces. "It was an unexpected upside."

"Why the Uchiha?" Kakashi asks, eyes narrowed.

"…There were many reasons - I was so caught up in my Madara persona that I wanted revenge on the Clan, I needed bodies for experimentation, and... you're right. It wasn't the main reason, but I did hold a grudge against the Clan myself." He swallows, and looks away deliberately.

"But to tell the truth, I was… very insane. I didn't take Rin's death well, and I never did get over it. Back then, I took any excuse I could to kill and hurt, any way I could take revenge on the world that took Rin away from me." Obito shakes his head, as if trying to clear the memories from his head. "Now... I don't have anything against my clan, not anymore."

The mention of Rin's death makes Kakashi's heart feel heavy in his chest. "You were the one who killed the rest of those hunter nin, weren't you?"

He still remembered those lakes of blood, the bodies ripped apart by the roots – and what that meant, Kakashi didn't particularly want to think about – as if by a feral animal, and most of all – "…Why didn't you kill me too? It wouldn't have been hard. I… killed Rin, after all."

"Don't lie to me, Bakashi. I know that Rin was the one to kill herself, even if she used you to do it." Obito shrugs weakly. "Besides, you're my teammate, Kakashi. Even before… I guess I knew inside that you wouldn't have done it for no reason."

He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He had always thought…

"You said that you won't be one of the village's enemies. What if Rin dies again?" He asks. "What if you get another chance to make that perfect world you mentioned… Obito?"

"I still won't," the Uchiha says, with just the slightest hesitation. And then, a bit more sure, " _I won't_. I'm not stupid enough to want that fake world, not after everything that happened… Not even if Rin dies again. I made a promise to Sensei. And… he made a promise to me, as well."

"Oh?"

"If I break my promise, he'll end my life in a way that even Madara can't find a way to bring me back." Obito says it with utter confidence.

Kakashi blinks. If he was any better adjusted, he would find it horrifying that Obito seemed ridiculously happy at the prospect of being completely and utterly _destroyed_ if he so takes a single step down a different, darker path.

Instead, he 'hm's'. "You want me to make that promise to you too, huh…?"

Obito doesn't reply. "Maa, Obito. I think you might be overestimating me here. I'm just a lowly jounin sensei."

The other boy groans at that. "…Lowly jounin sensei, my ass," he mutters. "The last time we fought, you Chidori'd a fist-sized hole in my chest."

"I… what?" Kakashi had been in the process of pushing himself to his feet, but now he stares at the Uchiha incredulously. "I killed you?"

"You wish, Kakashi." Obito looks at the blood on his hand with confusion, as if surprised at why his nose was still bleeding. "No, I – agh, I got better."

Kakashi offers him a hand. Obito blinks and smiles, before allowing himself to be pulled up with his non-bloodied hand.

"Unfortunately, Chidori isn't exactly in my repertoire now," Kakashi offers.

"…Yeah, about that." Obito wipes his hand on his jacket, leaving rapidly browning streaks on the navy blue cloth. "Most of my abilities stem from my Mangekyō. With it, I'm pretty much untouchable. Not even Minato-sensei could defeat me now, when I have both of my eyes."

He points to his eyes, crimson Mangekyō rotating lazily. "My eyes are connected to each other. That's why the only way to defeat someone with one of these eyes… is to have the other."

Oh, dammit. Now he knew where Obito was going with this. Kakashi eyes Obito warily. "I'm not going to take your eye, Obito."

"Why not? You know you won't be able to fight at full capacity without it."

"I'll manage." The power of Obito's eye was incredible, but it wasn't worth the price he had paid to get it.

Obito groans. "Don't be ridiculous, Kakashi. I've been working with a single Sharingan for two decades – you'll save me a lot of trouble adjusting. And, since we have four working eyes between the two of us this time… it's not like I'll be half-blind."

"It's not that," Kakashi mutters.

Really, it wasn't. Over the years, Obito's Sharingan had been a simultaneous boon and curse. The abilities of a regular Sharingan was ridiculously useful, and that didn't even include the dimension warping powers of the Mangekyō. But at the same time, it was a symbol of his failures, all of which had been etched into his memory because of the eye. Obito smiling through the blood, Rin's blank wide eyes, Minato-sensei and Kushina's broken corpses in the wake of the Kyuubi…

It wasn't particularly logical, but Kakashi didn't want that eye in his head – even if its original owner was alive and well.

To his dismay, Obito doesn't relent. The Uchiha's eyes narrow at him, his annoyance almost palpable. "…Dammit, Kakashi. Just take my eye. I _need_ someone who can do whatever's necessary… _and_ has the ability to do it. Besides…"

Obito's eyes glint. "You're the only one of us here who isn't permanently dead. I don't know why we're all here, but if it gets reversed somehow… I still want to see the future with you, got it, Bakashi? We both know I'm not going to make Hokage. But you will, and I want to see it."

Kakashi exhales, a hand raised to his nose bridge. "I have no idea what you're talking about – I'm not the future Kakashi that you know," he says weakly. "And even if I get resurrected somehow... I'll still have your Sharingan -"

"Remember why I gave you my eye in the first place?" Obito presses on. "How can we beat Madara if you can't fight at full strength? How are we going to protect _Rin_?"

Kakashi winces. There was no way Obito would have known, but Rin had said something similar to him the first - and only - time she caught him trying to cut out his eye.

"I can manage -" But even as he says it, he knows he can't say no – not when Obito had whipped out that particular trump card. Judging from the triumphant grin on Obito's face, he knew it as well.

Kakashi sighs, and puts a hand to his forehead. "...I hope you have a plan for this, Obito. Your clan wasn't exactly happy about me having your eye the first time around."

Obito waves a hand dismissively. "I know how to deal with them, don't worry about it. All we need is a medic nin who's willing to do it, and we can just ask Rin in a few -"

He blinks. "...Shit."

Kakashi glances at the darkening bruise on Obito's face, the brown streaks of dried blood on his clothing, his obviously broken nose. He knows without looking that he himself has a spattering of scrapes and bruises underneath his clothing.

"Maybe Rin won't notice?" He offers.

Obito puts his face in his hands with a groan.

* * *

Rin wipes the sweat from her eyes with a single hand, breathing heavily. It had been a while since she had last been assigned to do the 'menial labor' portion of volunteering at the hospital. For much of the past year, she had been healing actual patients.

She had made a lot of progress in the year after Obito's 'death.' There wasn't much else for her to do, with Team Minato in an uneasy limbo after the loss of a member. Obito had been the motivation for her to dive back into her studies with renewed vigor - if only she had known much more advanced medical ninjutsu techniques back then, could she have been able to save him?

A loud noise from overhead startles her from her memories. She blinks at the urgent cry of, "Code Blue, floor five, room 39!" which repeats three times in short succession, before cutting off.

A patient needed immediate medical attention - and judging from the lack of footsteps, they would soon end up as one of the many casualties of Konoha's wartime shortage of medic nin.

After Tsunade-sama's departure from the village, the hospital had struggled to maintain its quality of healthcare. Less and less shinobi had completed medical training, due to the incredible chakra control necessary for the mastery of medical ninjutsu. It didn't help that wartime had depleted the existing ranks - medic nin were, of course, the first targets of any enemy.

Rin drops the heavy box she had been hauling and runs for the stairs.

She's halfway to the fourth floor before she remembers that she wasn't cleared to deal with code blue emergencies - that would be in roughly three months' time - and she wasn't supposed to have that kind of capability.

It would be difficult to explain if she was discovered, and was it really worth this to save the life of someone who probably died in their original timeline?

She knows the answer even before she finishes considering the question. Of course it was. It was the responsibility of a medic nin to save lives. Rin would deal with the consequences later.

Rin sees the door wide open, but there's no one inside - her suspicions had been correct, then. She grits her teeth, scans the hallway for any witnesses. There's no one on the floor - judging from the commotion going on downstairs, a team had just returned from their mission gone awry.

The figure in the bed is seizing, mouth a dark hole in a bandaged face as he gasps desperately for air, each breathe shallow. Rin bites her lip - at a glance, she can tell that the man is undergoing respiratory failure, possibly from some injury to the chest?

But she needs to get closer, needs physical contact in order to do an actual diagnosis. She glances one last time at the open door - no chakra signatures approaching, nowhere near, thankfully - and steps forward.

Two fingers on skin is enough, luckily enough - Rin isn't sure if there was any other area of the man's body not covered in bandages that was large enough to make contact with.

She narrows her eyes, focusing chakra in her fingers - and her eyes go wide.

Burns, multiple cracked ribs, maybe even some _broken_... No, even worse. Rin swears under her breath. Flail chest - several adjacent ribs had been broken in multiple places, to the point that the chest wall was now moving independently. If any of the broken ribs makes contact with the lungs - or even, the _heart_ -

Chakra scalpels form around her hands automatically.

It's a delicate operation - Rin tries actively to mend the bones, because while intubation could allow for proper ventilation for the patient, medic nin had access to methods that civilian doctors did not. She wasn't even sure if the hospital has the equipment to spare, and she would most definitely attract attention for asking.

She heals several contusions of the lung that would have killed if left untreated, and hisses when the man shudders under her.

Rin does her best on the ribs, but there's a limit to her abilities. Her future mentor had commended her on her innately superb chakra control, which was probably the only reason that she had been able to transplant Obito's eye, but she was no Tsunade.

Finally, she pulls away with a gasp, satisfied with the knowledge that her patient wasn't going to die in the next few hours - not until perhaps his next mission, in fact, if all goes well.

Still, it's more of a chance than he had before her treatment.

She lifts her head - and freezes, at the dark eyes regarding her with surprising clarity, considering their owner had been minutes from death just seconds earlier.

Rin pastes a blank smile on her face before she whips around and walks to the door, heart hammering, praying fervently that her features wouldn't be particularly memorable to the man. There were plenty of brunettes at this particular hospital after all.

The moment she's out of sight, she breaks into a run. She doesn't stop until she's back on the ground floor, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Yo, Rin!" Shouts a voice, from right by her ear.

She whips around with a squeak, and slumps in relief. "Ah, Genma-kun! I didn't expect to see you today."

"Yeah... our team got back from our mission early." The boy shrugs. "Ebisu's waiting to get his broken arm healed, but it might be a while. Sometimes, it sucks not having a medic nin on our team."

"I think I can heal a broken bone, if he needs it," Rin offers. It would be ridiculously easy considering what else she had to deal with over the years, but she doesn't voice that out loud.

Genma shakes his head, senbon in his mouth swaying from side to side. "Eh, you know how Ebisu is. It's all by-the-book for him. Though, speaking of by-the-book..." He glances around, eyes narrowed. "Are your teammates here, by any chance?"

"Um... I'm not sure. I told them to meet me here, but it's been a while... why?"

"Well, if Kakashi was hanging around here, I wanted to warn him that -"

He's interrupted by a loud thud from a supply closet, just a few feet away. They blink and turn to stare as one.

"Good job, Obito," comes Kakashi's voice, distinctively exasperated, from inside what Rin remembers to be an incredibly tiny space, indeed. A minute later, the door slams open, and Rin's missing teammates practically roll out of the closet.

Obito pushes himself up with both arms, taking in his surroundings carefully. "...Yeah, it _is_ a good job, Kakashi! This _is_ the right place, so shut it!"

"What the hell?" Genma whispers from next to her. "Did they - blotch a Shunshin, or something? How did they end up in there?"

Rin blinks, and realizes that she has no idea. "I... think so. Er, Kakashi? Obito?" They both turn to look at her, seemingly oblivious to the amount of whispering onlookers. "There's a lot of busy people in here... I think we should all go outside."

Both boys nod, and within seconds, they disappear in identical puffs of smoke, just as Genma says, "Actually, I don't think that's a - oh, shit. Damn."

A few seconds later, Rin hears a very loud and very enthusiastic, " _Yosh!_ "

Genma hangs his head in defeat. "...I guess we should go and make sure that our teammates don't kill each other," he says regretfully.

* * *

[A/N: Argh, looks like Gai has to wait another chapter to make his debut. The reason for that is, I want to work with some outside POVs for that particular part, and I don't want to add another few thousand words to this chapter, which is already the longest in the fic so far.

I'll post the bonus (I changed my mind on which to use, just because the progression of the plot so far didn't really work for what I had in mind) with the next chapter, which should be up within a week - since, I have a basic idea of what I want to write... unlike for this chapter. Sorry for the long wait, by the way. The Danzo-ROOT conversation kind of fell short when I did some canon reviewing and realized that Kakashi had a very good idea of what Danzo was up to with ROOT (but didn't tell anyone about it? I'm not actually sure about that part, darn it Narutopedia.) So the conversation ended up going another direction.

I actually know nothing about medical procedures, which probably shows. I also like the idea of Rin being friends with most other people in her generation, just because she's so darn _nice_.

As always, feedback and concrit are greatly appreciated!]


	7. Chapter 7

Hatake Kakashi was not, by nature, an agreeable person.

It was understandable, to an extent. Combine an already prickly personality with the lifetime of special treatment that came with the label of 'genius' (with liberal amounts of mental and physical trauma, to boot) and the results were inarguably... not good. Kakashi had long suspected that his superiors tolerated his quirks of perpetual tardiness and porn addiction because he could be far, far worse.

As a result, the group of people that Kakashi considered precious to him was pitifully tiny. They ranged greatly, from red haired women with a propensity for physical violence to dark-haired brooders with a lust for revenge. Locking all (dozen or so) of them into a room would result in grievous injury to human bodies and landscape alike.

But for all their differences, they all tended to be remarkably similar. For one, they were incredibly tenacious. They were determinators to the end, and probably cared more than was good for them.

They were also, for the most part, very dead.

Being a genius, Kakashi saw patterns easily. He could read an enemy's next movement even without Obito's eye. He could predict whether or not a particular literary hot springs scene would end in copulation or a decapitation (which was one of the reasons he preferred Icha Icha over its competition - it was realistic.)

Obito turned from idiot teammate, to friend, to a shallowly engraved name on the Memorial Stone. Rin turned from useful medic nin with an annoying crush, to friend - lifeline - someone who understood, to cooling corpse still impaled on his trembling hand.

After Minato-sensei and Kushina, Kakashi could no longer ignore that particular pattern. He threw himself head-first into ANBU, because there was no risk of caring too much here, not when death and loss were expected on every mission.

And he continued stubbornly, although with increasing disbelief, to ignore the idiot in green spandex who seemed to have set up permanent post outside of the window of Kakashi's apartment.

Maito Gai had long occupied a periphery position in Kakashi's life. Their fathers had been friends, and so he had seen the boy occasionally during childhood. But after the other boy had failed his first attempt to enter the Academy, and continued to show little to no skill in any discipline other than taijutsu...

Kakashi had been incredibly unimpressed. That knowledge had just made Obito's defeat at Gai's hands even more damning.

He had never taken Gai's constant challenges seriously, occasionally agreeing to a game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' so that his team could get started on training. For whatever reason, the man continued to claim him as his 'Eternal Rival' regardless.

Still, Gai was good friends with Rin, a result of the constant visits he paid Team Minato in order to challenge Kakashi. For her sake, Kakashi bore his presence on several three-man missions. Eventually, he had even won his respect, after a particularly disastrous mission that almost ended in all of their deaths.

As loud and irritating as the man was, Gai was a good person – better than Kakashi was, anyways. He thought then that, had Obito lived, the Uchiha would have gotten along well with Gai – their personal philosophies and ideals were too similar for them not to have.

And then, Rin had died, and it had all gone to hell. Most of the other shinobi of their generation avoided Kakashi from then on, which was understandable – Rin had been universally liked, and it had been him who had killed her.

Gai, on the other hand, had taken the complete opposite approach. After the Kyuubi, the man had – somehow – _increased_ his efforts to get Kakashi to accept another challenge.

'Yosh, 27 to 28!' The man would shout, a single fist clenched in front of him. 'I cannot let this stand – I challenge _you_ , my eternal rival Kakashi, to a match of your choosing!'

Kakashi had never been so glad that his windows had curtains.

Honestly, Kakashi would be fine with just ignoring the man. But faced with an annoyed landlady shoving dozens of daily noise complaints at his face and threatening eviction, he didn't have much of a choice to accept a challenge, if for nothing else than to make Gai go away.

Four years later, fighting a spontaneous battle of kitchen supplies against a man in blinding green spandex on the rooftops, Kakashi realized that he might have miscalculated.

Maito Gai was not an idiot. He was not even a man. What he was, was a force of nature.

He blew right through every barrier Kakashi put in his way, both literal and metaphorical, and established himself in Kakashi's daily routine like a particularly excited green leech.

Drag self home from week long mission. Sleep. Shower. Win Gai's challenge. Eat. Sleep. Lose Gai's challenge. Leave on another long-term mission. And so on.

The Gai standing in front of him now looks nothing like a force of nature. But then, appearances had never an accurate measure in defining Maito Gai.

The boy points at him, his single finger outstretched and shaking slightly, as if from the amount of pure passion imbued within it. Twin bushy brows furrow above narrowed eyes.

"We meet again, my rival Kakashi!" He bellows. All around him, bystanders edge away carefully (and wisely), leaving an empty ten foot radius circle around him.

Still, for better or for worse, they have an audience. Several teams had returned from their missions today, and the hospital was a required checkpoint. Kakashi sweatdrops as he recognizes a younger but unmistakable Asuma standing to the side, just a hint of peach fuzz on his chin.

 _But… This could be good._

"Gai," he replies mildly. Beside him, Obito quickly takes a few steps back, apparently not looking forward to getting in either of their ways.

"Argh!" Gai shouts, staggering back a single step back. "Your attitude… always so hip - and so cool! Just as expected from my Eternal Rival! I see… then, I have no choice."

His eyes narrow. "The count currently stands in your favor… but you will not have the upper hand for long! I challenge you to a match!"

Kakashi stares at him lazily with half-lidded eyes.

A brown-haired figure cautiously approaches Gai from the side. After a few seconds, Kakashi recognizes him as Genma, so young it was disorienting.

"Yo, Gai," he says through the senbon in his mouth – at least _some_ things stayed constant – with his hands held up placatingly. "It's probably a good idea to postpone that match, y'know? Ebisu could use some company, and Kakashi doesn't seem too… uh –"

"Maa…" Kakashi says slowly, in mock thought, putting a single hand to his masked chin. His eyes curve into crescents. "Sure."

Genma whips around to gawk at him. Kakashi doesn't look around to check, but judging from the sudden silence, he isn't the only one stunned at the new development.

Gai blinks once, the only sign of his surprise. "Kakashi, y-you…" Tears well up in his eyes and stream down his face even as he grins, the sun glinting off every one of his pearly white teeth. "Yosh! Rock-Paper-Scissors it is!"

It's familiar, comfortably so. Kakashi goes through the motions, bringing his fist on his palm twice as he shouts the requisite, "Rock, paper, scissors!"

But instead of showing any of the standard three options on the final go, Kakashi holds up a hand. Gai stops, in obvious confusion.

"Maa, how about something other than Rock-Paper-Scissors this time?" He asks.

Gai's jaw drops. "My Eternal Rival… what do you have in mind?"

Kakashi smiles. "How about… that?" He points a single finger at, over Gai's head.

A few dozen gazes follow it. "The Hokage Monument?" He hears Rin squeak.

"We start at the bottom, and then race to the top," he says, matter-of-fact. "But we can only use a single hand. No chakra."

Tears pour from Gai's wide eyes. He trembles. Kakashi is momentarily worried that the boy will combust where he stands, from pure excitement and (dare he say it) youthfulness.

"Eternal Rival…! That is truly a youthful challenge." Gai gives him a tearful thumbs up. " _I accept_! And, if I lose, I shall run fifty laps around the village on my hands!"

He Shunshin's away, and after a beat, Kakashi follows.

* * *

Rin swallows, suddenly very aware of the many stares that had just landed on her and Obito.

"Er, Rin," Genma says in a stage whisper. "…Did Kakashi… hit his head or something?"

She doesn't know quite what to say. She isn't even sure what _happened_. Rin saw, like everyone else, Kakashi not only accept Gai's challenge without complaint, but participate in the ensuing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors while wagging his bottom ridiculously. And now, both of them were gone, apparently at the Hokage Monument to compete in some challenge that _Kakashi_ had suggested.

But she wasn't sure how to put those pieces together to make some explanation that fit. It wasn't as if she could say, "Well, actually, our whole team just came back from the future. Apparently, Kakashi is just a very weird adult."

"Oh, the challenge with Gai?" Obito asks. Rin slumps in relief. "I dunno. He's been like that for years."

She curses under her breath.

Genma blinks. "You're kidding me," he says flatly. "That was _not_ normal."

Obito shrugs. "Maybe you didn't notice," he offers. "Kakashi always acts like that. I mean, Rin and I are his teammates. We _do_ know him the best after all."

"Didn't you call him an asshole and an arrogant jerk?" The other boy asks skeptically.

"People change."

"You said that _yesterday_."

Obito nods. His poker face is perfect.

Genma stares at him, and then Rin, in utter disbelief.

"Uh, right," she says unconvincingly. An awkward silence prevails.

"Whatever!" Someone shouts from the quasi-crowd, breaking the spell. "I just wanna see two dumbasses try to climb the Monument with one hand!"

To Rin's relief, the majority of the audience leaves with the foul-mouthed, purple haired girl. So does Genma, but he does give her a knowing look before he does. Everyone else disperses, disappointed by the lack of continued excitement.

"…Obito?"

He shrugs. "Acting stupid usually stops awkward questions," he explains, with the certainty of experience.

"Sooner or later, someone's going to know something's wrong," Rin says worriedly. "Even now, Genma…"

"There's nothing they can do anyways. No one's going to go to the Hokage because Kakashi started reading porn. Maybe they'll tell Minato-sensei, but…" Obito grins. "He already knows what's going on. Though, he might burn Kakashi's entire collection."

It is clear from the expression on his face that he considers the latter a plus. Rin, however, is stuck on a different point.

"...Icha Icha?" She says faintly. "Kakashi reads _porn?_ "

"Yeah. In public, too," Obito adds, almost triumphantly.

Rin puts a hand to her mouth in feigned horror, and decides that Obito must never find out about a certain collection of books hidden carefully in various parts of her room. (It was just a phase, she _swears_.)

"I can't believe it," she says, utterly unconvincingly.

Obito doesn't seem to notice, thankfully. He turns to face her fully, evidently on a roll. "Oh yeah… he's also late to everything. I guess he's trying to copy me, but the asshole doesn't even actually _help_ old grannies get their cats out of their trees. He just stands in front of the –"

"Obito," Rin says slowly, "is that blood on your jacket?"

He freezes. "It's… not mine?"

"…It's Kakashi's, isn't it."

"Er –"

"I bet he was the one who broke your nose too."

"Well…" Obito slumps. "Yeah."

It was like they were actually teenagers, not the grown men they actually were. It hits Rin that maybe, she shouldn't have been that worried about her team not needing her any longer.

"I thought you and Kakashi were going to _talk_ ," she exclaims, aghast.

"We did!" He yelps. "It just got, uh, a little heated –"

"What were you two talking _about_?"

Obito glances around, before motioning Rin to come a bit closer. She obliges, and he whispers in her ear, "One of the Hokage's advisors is trying to slowly usurp power from the Sandaime. Kakashi and I were trying to figure out what to do about it."

" _What?_ "

"No, seriously!"

"But then -" Rin swallows. "When are we telling the Hokage?"

"We're not," Obito replies in a whisper, face shuttered off. "We _can't_. Rin, let's not talk about this stuff here. There might be people listening."

She starts at the revelation. Not telling the Hokage? And... this was obviously something important, something that could affect the whole village. That was bordering on _treason_ , really, as Rin knows from the lessons drummed in over countless hours in the Academy.

Rin isn't an idiot, however. She nods. "We can talk at my place," she tells Obito seriously. "My dad's definitely not part of... some political scheme against the Hokage."

"Your place?" He echoes, somewhat blankly. "Are you sure?"

"...Obito, you've met my dad," she says slowly. "You came over plenty of times."

Obito had met her father even before Kakashi and Minato-sensei had, since they had been friends for years before.

Being a civilian, Rin's father had made her promise to tell him everything she could about shinobi and, once learning that she had made a friend from a shinobi clan, demanded to meet him. Occasional talks over take-out over the local barbeque joint became a lot more frequent after Obito's grandmother passed away, eventually turning into a twice-a-week tradition.

Her father had never said anything outright, but Rin knew that he felt some relief that, even as she entered the strange and alien world of shinobi, she was still on a team with someone he trusted to watch her back.

He had been very quiet, the days after she came back from the mission that Obito had died on. That had been when her father had tried to get her to retire from the shinobi life, and it was the first time they had disagreed.

In the end, he couldn't force her to stop. He was a civilian, and she outranked him. But Rin did promise him that she would be careful. She spent most of her time working in the hospital, not out in the field, and that she wouldn't die and - it was quietly understood - leave him alone.

( _Oh no_.)

"It's been almost twenty years, Rin," Obito says reluctantly, jarring her - gladly - out of her thoughts. "There's a lot of things that I don't remember. Most of the stuff I remember is just... you and Kakashi and, well, our team."

She bites her lip. "I'll explain to my dad," she decides. "I'll say it was some training accident or something, and you lost some memory because of it. He doesn't know that much about shinobi, anyways, so he won't question it."

"I'm not sure, Rin, I -"

"It's been a long time since you've lived in the village," she says, very quietly. "It'll definitely help for you to talk to people you knew. You're not in the future anymore, right? You can't always act like you did before."

He doesn't say anything out loud, but after a long moment, Obito nods slightly.

* * *

Even discounting his own death and subsequent time travel, Namikaze Minato had had a strange day.

Somewhat confident that none of his students would try to kill each other anytime in the immediate future, he had taken the afternoon to explore his village. It felt strange to walk around with a (admittedly small) degree of anonymity. There were people who didn't know about the Yellow Flash, but _everyone_ had known the Yondaime. There were no ANBU bowing to him as he passed, no villagers pointing and whispering in wonder, no Hokage's Guard surreptitiously following him around.

There were, however, many familiar faces. Minato had mixed emotions about that.

Some of those faces were ones he had never thought he would see again. There were fellow jounin that he had seen die in the battlefield. Some were men and women who he had sent out to die, because he had been the Hokage and that was what the leader of a military dictatorship _did_. Others, like ( _obito rin)_ his team, had been people who he hadn't been able to save.

Much more common were chunin and genin, painfully young, that he recognized as adult shinobi under his command. Why, the vast majority of his Guard were still chuunin at this point, the same age as his students.

But others... He frowns at the reminder. There were traitors in every village, and as Hokage, Minato had been the ones to order their captures and their executions. Orochimaru (did the man start up his experimentation yet? could he be redeemed, like jiraiya-sensei had always hoped?) was the most prominent of the village's ranks to turn traitor, but there had been dozens more beside him.

Many of them had been eliminated by the village's hunter nin. Some had still been active at the time of his death. Minato still remembers many of their names, but that raised a question.

He was the Hokage, and the Hokage always acts in the best interest of the village. With what he knew, he could eliminate traitors even before they showed their true colors, often killing teammates or other Konoha shinobi before they left. But what if redemption was still possible for them? Was it worth the safety of the village to give them a chance?

Except, that was the problem. Even if Minato decided to put his knowledge of the future to use, he didn't have the authority to act. Not without telling the Sandaime everything and gaining his approval, which was... grating. He respected his predecessor, but Minato had become used to the power that came with the position. That, and he knew that the older man would not be nearly as merciful towards possible enemies of the village.

If Minato informed the Sandaime of his team's time-travel and knowledge of the future, it was very possible that they could be interrogated for everything that they knew. Obito would most likely be executed. There was also no reason that he would allow them - a team of two jounin and two chunin - to confront an unknown such as Uchiha Madara, which was objectively reasonable, but would also mean a higher chance of detection and failure. After that, any pertinent information from Kakashi and Obito would become null and void.

But if he didn't... it was treason. He would be keeping important, _vital_ information from the supreme leader of the village.

Minato sighs. This would be a lot easier if he was still Yondaime.

A moment later, a heavy picnic basket slams onto his head.

Minato stumbles forward with a yelp, a single hand instinctively moving to cover his head. "What -?" He manages, and looks up to see furious blue eyes and flaming red hair.

Oh.

"What the hell, Minato!" Kushina shouts, her free hand clenched in a fist. She had evidently been forced to stand on tip-toes in order to get the basket over his head. "You told me yesterday that you were training with your team over in Training Ground 8, so I went and made lunch for everyone! But then I get there, and _nobody's_ there! Nobody! Not even a note!"

"Kushina -"

"Don't Kushina me! Now these -" She waves the basket in front of his face. "- are all cold and mushy! You could have at least told me that training was canceled. Then, I could have eaten these myself instead of having them go to waste!"

"Something important came up," he says quickly. Emboldened by the lack of picnic basket injury, Minato adds, "Kushina, I'm sorry. I really had no idea this would happen."

She puts her basket down, but there's still a frown on her face. After a long pause, Kushina gestures impatiently at him. "Well? Aren't you going to explain?"

Is he? Minato hadn't even had enough time to accept all the strange things that had happened in the past day. There had been no chance for him to contemplate who he would tell, other than the Sandaime.

It feels inexplicably wrong not to tell Kushina, however. She _was_ his wife, after all... except, she wasn't yet. In a moment of panic, Minato tries to remember exactly how long they had been dating at this point. How much of this was he basing off of _his_ Kushina?

"I'll explain," he tries. "But since it has to do with the rest of my team as well... I would rather them be here as well."

"...Your team?" She narrows her eyes. "Does this have to do why Kakashi-kun's climbing the Hokage Monument with one hand?"

"Kakashi's... what?"

She motions behind her, specifically to the distant Hokage Monument - and the two figures making their way up its face, one of them dark blue and the other blinding green. "I think he's competing with Gai - y'know, the kid who talks in capital letters."

Minato stares. "Is that a crowd?" He says weakly. Kushina nods.

* * *

 **[A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback! Here's a super long chapter for all of you.**

 **Rin's family situation is based on 'Three Scratched Out Words' by fowl68, which is an amazing (and honestly heartbreaking) fic on AO3.**

 **Gai... is surprisingly hard to write. He's youthful and all, but he's not stupid or a joke. I really do love his weird friendship with Kakashi, and I'm not very sure how compliant my version of it is with canon, but... there it is. The challenge is based off of some filler episode I vaguely remember with Kakashi and Gai climbing up the Hokage Monument, but honestly at this point, I could probably imagine a whole new Naruto anime.**

 **Below is the bonus! I originally planned for something a lot more lighthearted and (frankly) really cracky, but it revealed too much of the future of this fic. I'll save that for the next time. On that note... y'all can now find me at dubsdeedubs on Tumblr. I'm planning on posting random fics/snippets that I don't feel like continuing, and I already have some up.**

 **Premise of this is, what if Team Minato had arrived in the past at a much less convenient time? That is, right smack-dab in the middle of the Kannabi Bridge mission.]**

* * *

The warm glow of the crackling fire, the heavy press of his father's hand on his back, the feeling of weightlessness as that dark world fades into an incomprehensible nothingness, and

Kakashi's eyes snap open, and feels a brief moment of complete disorientation, because he hadn't been this short a few minutes ago, where _was_ he, he was supposed to be _dead -_

It is only because of twenty-five years of shinobi training that he is able to avoid the kunai that would have slammed its way into his throat.

He immediately dodges to the left, a handful of shuriken already flying from his outstretched hand at his opponent. Kakashi is dimly aware of the duality of his vision, which meant one thing to him – Obito's Sharingan was gone.

But this was no time to dwell on that. Three of the projectiles thud into wood, which meant –

A pained yell. Two of the shuriken had found their target. Kakashi whips his head around, narrows his eyes in order to make out the features of his opponent, and – he freezes for just a second, eyes widening as he realized that he had seen that particular face before.

Twenty years ago, on the mission that had changed his life, Hatake Kakashi had fought against an enemy shinobi who had looked exactly like this man. A single sweep of his surroundings confirmed Kakashi's suspicions.

The bamboo, the dryness of the air, the gravel under his feet instead of familiar dirt – this was Iwa territory, and Kakashi was somehow reliving one of the worst days in his life.

"You fucking _brat,_ " He hears distantly. It is a reminder that Kakashi could not stop to think just yet.

His go-to techniques were out of the question. No Sharingan, no Chidori, no Raikiri. Still, Kakashi had always been prepared for the day that Obito's last present was stripped from him.

A single hand slammed to the ground brings up a wall of earth. Seconds later, several wooden stakes slam into it, embedding themselves several inches into the densely packed dirt with the sheer force of their launch.

By the time the wall comes down in a shower of rubble, Kakashi is already gone.

The Iwa jounin turns on his feet the moment he sees the empty space.

 _Too slow._

There is nothing he can do to defend against Kakashi's chakra-strengthened punch to the chest. There is an audible crack as ribs cracked and _broke_. Blood flew from the man's mouth as he screams in agony.

Still, the man recovers enough to catch Kakashi's other fist with an iron grip, only to scream with a pained gurgle as Kakashi _flips_ , taking advantage of his small size ( _how was he this small again-_ ) to slam both feet into his face.

Blood blinds the jounin for just seconds before he wipes it away, but it is just long enough time for Kakashi's blown fireball to consume his form. Strengthened by Kakashi's chakra, the fire is relentless. Fabric and skin melt together under the heat of the flame, and Kakashi's opponent drops to the ground screaming, rolling.

A single kunai ends the pained writhing. The ear-pitching shouts of agony cuts off with a sudden choke.

Kakashi takes a single step back from the corpse in front of him, and whips around in a hope of finding out just _what_ _the fuck_ was going on.

The clearing becomes even more familiar, now that he had the time to examine it closer than he could have in battle. Immediately, he sees the figure of a long-dead teammate, standing just a few feet away. Rin is wide eyed, but the chakra scalpels that she had perfected in the weeks after Obito's death are visible in her hands. Judging from the limp form bleeding out at her feet, she had used them. But she is looking somewhere else as well, and -

Just beyond her, stumbling as if terribly disoriented and confusion clear as day on his young face –

Kakashi remembers what was supposed to happen here. "Obito, watch out!" He shouts as he runs toward that familiar blue-and-orange figure, pushing every bit of chakra he could toward his legs so that he could get to Obito in time.

The boy snaps toward him, pure astonishment plastered over his face. "Kakashi -?" He asks.

That's all he gets out before a single arm locks around his neck, cutting off his words as easily as it did his source of oxygen. The remaining Iwa nin points his kunai at Obito's throat. "You fucking brats, don't come a single step forward!"

Kakashi stumbles forward a single step, the result of the momentum lost. The blade digs into the Uchiha's throat, drawing a trickle of blood that wells up into a blotch on the boy's collar.

"I'll slit his goddamn throat," the man promises. It takes one look at his face for Kakashi to know that his opponent was beyond logic, so furious and embarrassed he was at the loss of his teammates to children.

He holds up both hands, hoping to placate his opponent to some degree. "Rin," Kakashi says. "…Dispel your weapons."

As stunned as she is, Rin follows his directions. Still, she stares at Obito as if she couldn't believe her eyes. Kakashi could understand – he couldn't either. But it was not the time for that, not when Obito was somehow alive and – more importantly - in the hands of the enemy.

"If you let my teammate go," he tries, hoping for an opening, "we'll let you escape. We won't come after you."

But even as he says it, Kakashi knows he had made a mistake.

"Let me _go_?" The Iwa nin says, voice shaking with fury. "You fuckers butchered my team – the moment I let go of this kid, I'm just as dead as they are." There is a glint of insanity in his eyes, of a man who saw death as the only path open to him –

\- and wanted to take anyone he could with him. The blade of the kunai flashes down.

" _Obito!_ " Rin screams, as she runs forward futilely – and halts in her step, face pale with shock.

There is no blood. The weapon had half-disappeared into Obito's body, part of the base and handle still visible – but it was as if Obito was no more than an illusionary image – or a ghost. The boy's eyes shine crimson red, and there is a pinwheel pattern in them that Kakashi recognizes as his own Mangekyo.

An unfamiliar grin appears on Obito's face. For a second, he seems positively _excited_.

The next few seconds pass fast enough that even Kakashi had trouble following them. One moment, Obito hangs from the Iwa nin's iron grip – and then, he's standing on his own two feet, a glint in his eyes as he blurs into motion.

The man stares in horror at the hand that had punched its way through his chest.

It seemed to Kakashi like a twisted version of Chidori, though there is no telltale chirping of birds, no electricity spurting from the wound. It could hardly be called a technique.

This is nothing more than a display of brute strength.

Dark blood blossoms from the wound like ink on paper. It flows from the man's slack mouth as he gurgles faintly, and pools on the gravel ground.

A moment later, the arm is withdrawn. The body thuds onto the ground, like a puppet with cut strings.

Obito turns to meets their eyes, both eyes crimson, the smile on his lips an unfamiliar expression on his face. His body is sprayed with his enemy's lifeblood, his right arm practically coated with it, but he doesn't seem to care. Kakashi fights the urge to flinch back – Obito seemed to him, for a moment, positively demonic.

"O- _Obito_ …?" Rin stammers. "W-what –"

The smile slides off Obito's face, to be replaced by a much more familiar look of childish wonderment – and then he _grins_ , bright and joyful, in a way that reminds Kakashi of blonde hair and whisker marks.

He takes an unsteady step forward, and does not notice the way that Rin stumbles back in horror, or the way that Kakashi fingers the Hiraishin kunai in his pouch.

"Kakashi, Rin," Obito breathes, as if every one of his dreams had come true at once. "You're all _here_."


End file.
